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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD
OF KINGDOM COME

*M hain't uotluu- <ui a boy, but I got to ack lik* a man now."

THE

LITTLE SHEPHERD
OF KINGDOM COME

BY
JOHN FOX, JR.

ILLUSTRATED BY
F. C. YOHN

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1912

COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

tZTo

CURRIE DUKE
DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEF

AMONG
MORGAN'S MEN

April, 1898

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME . . 1

II. FIGHTING THEIR WAY . 11

III. A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME . 31

IV. THE COMING OF THE TIDE ... 54
V. OUT OF THE WILDERNESS .... 66

VI. LOST AT THE CAPITAL .... 77

VII. A FRIEND ON THE ROAD e 84

VIII. HOME WITH THE MAJOR .... 95

IX. MARGARET . . . „ , . .110

X. THE BLUEGRASS . 126

XL A TOURNAMENT . .... 131

XII. BACK TO KINGDOM COME ... 146

XIIL ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE . . . .159

XIV. THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS . . 174

XV. TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS . . 190

XVI. AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER ... 204

XVII. CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN . , 210

XVIII. THE SPIRIT OF 76 AND THE SHADOW

OF '61 224

vii

CONTENTS

PAGE

XIX. THE BLUE OR THE GRAY . , . .233

XX. OFF TO THE WAR 242

XXI. MELISSA . . . . .254

XXII. MORGAN'S MEN 269

XXIII. CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND . 290

XXIV. A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN 310
XXV. AFTER DAWS DILLON— GUERILLA 337

XXVI. BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST 348

XXVII. AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGAN'S MEN 361

XXVIII. PALL-BEARERS OF THE LOST CAUSE . 369

XXIX. MELISSA AND MARGARET . . . 377

XXX. PEACE 382

XXXI. THE WESTWARD WAY 401

ILLUSTRATIONS

" I hain't nothin' but a boy, but I got to

ack like a man now " Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

And the boy drank in the tales 58

" Squire," he said, and his voice trembled, "Jack's

my dog" 1 66

The old man's lip shook and he turned abruptly

within 250

Her face grew stern as she waited for him to answer 300
Margaret was listening eagerly 388

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD
OF KINGDOM COME

I

TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME

' I AHE days of that April had been days of mist
and rain. Sometimes, for hours, there
would come a miracle of blue sky, white cloud,
and yellow light, but always between dark and dark
the rain would fall and the mist creep up the moun
tains and steam from the tops — only to roll to
gether from either range, drip back into the val
leys, and lift, straightway, as mist again. So that,
all the while Nature was trying to give lustier life
to every living thing in the lowland Bluegrass, all
the while a gaunt skeleton was stalking down the
Cumberland — tapping with fleshless knuckles, now
at some unlovely cottage of faded white and green,
and now at a log cabin, stark and gray. Passing
the mouth of Lonesome, he flashed his scythe into
its unlifting shadows and went stalking on. High
up, at the source of the dismal little stream, the
point of the shining blade darted thrice into the

I

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

open door of a cabin set deep into a shaggy flank
of Black Mountain, and three spirits, within, were
quickly loosed from aching flesh for the long flight
into the unknown.

It was the spirit of the plague that passed, tak
ing with it the breath of the unlucky and the unfit,
and in the hut on Lonesome three were dead — a
gaunt mountaineer, a gaunt daughter, and a gaunt
son. Later, the mother, too, "jes' kind o' got tired,"
as little Chad said, and soon to her worn hands and
feet came the well-earned rest. Nobody was left
then but Chad and Jack, and Jack was a dog with
a belly to feed and went for less than nothing with
everybody but his little master and the chance
mountaineer who had sheep to guard. So, for the
fourth time, Chad, with Jack at his heels, trudged
up to the point of a wooded spur above the cabin,
where, at the foot of a giant poplar and under a
wilderness of shaking June leaves, were three piles
of rough boards, loosely covering three hillocks of
rain-beaten earth; and, near them, an open grave.
There was no service sung or spoken over the
dead, for the circuit-rider was then months away;
so, unnoticed, Chad stood behind the big poplar,
watching the neighbors gently let down into the
shallow trench a home-made coffin, rudely hol
lowed from the half of a bee-gum log, and, un
noticed, slipped away at the first muffled stroke of
the dirt — doubling his fists into his eyes and stum-

2

TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME

bling against the gnarled bodies of laurel and
rhododendron until, out in a clear sunny space, he
dropped on a thick, velvet mat of moss and sobbed
himself to sleep. When he awoke, Jack was lick
ing his face and he sat up, dazed and yawning.
The sun was dropping fast, the ravines were filling
with blue shadows, luminous and misty, and a far
drowsy tinkling from the valley told him that cows
were starting homeward. From habit, he sprang
quickly to his feet, but, sharply conscious on a sud
den, dropped slowly back to the moss again, while
Jack, who had started down the spur, circled back
to see what the matter was, and stood with uplifted
foot, much puzzled.

There had been a consultation about Chad early
that morning among the neighbors, and old Na
than Cherry, who lived over on Stone Creek, in
the next cove but one, said that he would take
charge of the boy. Nathan did not wait for the
burial, but went back home for his wagon, leav
ing word that Chad was to stay all night with a
neighbor and meet him at the death-stricken cabin
an hour by sun. The old man meant to have Chad
bound to him for seven years by law — the boy had
been told that — and Nathan hated dogs as much
as Chad hated Nathan. So the lad did not lie long.
He did not mean to be bound out, nor to have Jack
mistreated, and he rose quickly and Jack sprang
before him down the rocky path and toward the

3

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

hut that had been a home to both. Under the pop
lar, Jack sniffed curiously at the new-made grave,
and Chad called him away so sharply that Jack's
tail drooped and he crept toward his master, as
though to ask pardon for a fault of which he was
not conscious. For one moment, Chad stood look
ing. Again the stroke of the falling earth smote
his ears and his eyes filled; a curious pain caught
him by the throat and he passed on, whistling-
down into the shadows below to the open door of
the cabin.

It was deathly still. The homespun bedclothes
and hand-made quilts of brilliant colors had been
thrown in a heap on one of the two beds of hickory
withes; the kitchen utensils — a crane and a few
pots and pans — had been piled on the hearth,
along with strings of herbs and beans and red
pepper-pods — all ready for old Nathan when he
should come over for them, next morning, with his
wagon. Not a living thing was to be heard or seen
that suggested human life, and Chad sat down in
the deepening loneliness, watching the shadows
rise up the green walls that bound him in, and won
dering what he should do, and where he should go,
if he was not to go to old Nathan; while Jack, who
seemed to know that some crisis was come, settled
on his haunches a little way off, to wait, with per
fect faith and patience, for the boy to make up his
mind.

TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME

It was the first time, perhaps, that Chad had
ever thought very seriously about himself, or won
dered who he was, or whence he had come. Dig
ging back into his memory as far as he could, it
seemed to him that what had just happened now
had happened to him once before, and that he had
simply wandered away. He could not recollect
where he had started from first, but he could recall
many of the places where he had lived, and why he
had left them — usually because somebody, like old
Nathan, had wanted to have him bound out, or
had misused Jack, or would not let the two stray off
into the woods together, when there was nothing
else to be done. He had stayed longest where he
was now, because the old man and his son and his
girl had all taken a great fancy to Jack, and had
let the two guard cattle in the mountains and drive
sheep and, if they stayed out in the woods over
night, struck neither a stroke of hand nor tongue.
The old mother had been his mother and, once
more, Chad leaned his head against the worn lintel
and wept silently. So far, nobody had seemed to
care particularly who he was, or was not — nor had
Chad. Most people were very kind to him, look
ing upon him as one of the wandering waifs that
one finds throughout the Cumberland, upon whom
the good folks of the mountains do not visit the
father's sin. He knew what he was thought to be,
and it mattered so little, since it made no discrimi-

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

nation against him, that he had accepted it with
out question. It did not matter now, except as it
bore on the question as to where he should start
his feet. It was a long time for him to have stayed
in one place, and the roving memories, stirred
within him now, took root, doubtless, in the restless
spirit that had led his unknown ancestor into those
mountain wilds after the Revolution.

All this while he had been sitting on the low
threshold, with his elbows in the hollows of his
thighs and his left hand across his mouth. Once
more, he meant to be bound to no man's service
and, at the final thought of losing Jack, the liberty-
loving little tramp spat over his hand with sharp
decision and rose.

Just above him and across the buck antlers over
the door, lay a long flint-lock rifle; a bullet-pouch,
a powder-horn, and a small raccoon-skin haversack
hung from one of the prongs: and on them the boy's
eyes rested longingly. Old Nathan, he knew,
claimed that the dead man had owed him money;
and he further knew that old Nathan meant to take
all he could lay his hands on in payment: but he
climbed resolutely upon a chair and took the things
down, arguing the question, meanwhile:

"Uncle Jim said once he aimed to give this rifle
gun to me. Mebbe he was foolin', but I don't be
lieve he owed ole Nathan so much, an', anyways,"
he muttered grimly, "I reckon Uncle Jim 'ud kind

6

TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME

o' like fer me to git the better of that ole devil —
jes' a leetle, anyways."

The rifle, he knew, was always loaded; there was
not much powder in the horn and there were not
more than a dozen bullets in the pouch, but they
would last him until he could get far away. No
more would he take, however, than what he
thought he could get along with — one blanket from
the bed and, from the fireplace, a little bacon and
a pone of corn-bread.

"An* I know Aunt Jane wouldn't 'a' keered
about these leetle fixin's, fer I have to have 'em, an*
I know Fve earned 'em anyways."

Then he closed the door softly on the spirits
of the dead within, and caught the short, deer
skin latch-string to the wooden pin outside. With
his Barlow knife, he swiftly stripped a bark string
from a pawpaw bush near by, folded and tied
his blanket, and was swinging the little pack
to his shoulder, when the tinkle of a cow-bell
came through the bushes, close at hand. Old
Nance, lean and pied, was coming home; he had
forgotten her, it was getting late, and he was anx
ious to leave for fear some neighbor might come;
but there was no one to milk and, when she drew
near with a low moo, he saw that her udders were
full and dripping. It would hurt her to go un-
milked, so Chad put his things down and took up
a cedar piggin from a shelf outside the cabin and

7

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

did the task thoroughly — putting the stoppings in
a cup and, so strong was the habit in him, hurrying
with both to the rude spring-house and setting them
in cool running water. A moment more and he had
his pack and his rifle on one shoulder and was
climbing the fence at the wood-pile. There he
stopped once more with a sudden thought, and
wrenching loose a short axe from the face of a
hickory log, staggered under the weight of his
weapons up the mountain. The sun was yet an hour
high and, on the spur, he leaned his rifle against
the big poplar and set to work with his axe on a
sapling close by — talking frankly now to the God
who made him:

"I reckon You know it, but I'm a-goin' to run
away now. I hain't got no daddy an' no mammy,
an' I hain't nuver had none as I knows — but Aunt
Jane hyeh — she's been jes' like a mother to me an'
I'm a-doin' fer her jes' whut I wish You'd have
somebody do fer my mother, ef You know whar
she's a-layin'."

Eight round sticks he cut swiftly — four long
and four short — and with these he built a low
pen, as is the custom of the mountaineers, close
about the fresh mound, and, borrowing a board
or two from each of the other mounds, covered
the grave from the rain. Then he sunk the axe
into the trunk of the great poplar as high up
as he could reach — so that it could easily be seen

TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME

— and, brushing the sweat from his face, he knelt
down:

"God!" he said, simply, "I hain't nothin' but
a boy, but I got to ack like a man now. I'm a-goin'
now. I don't believe You keer much and seems
like I bring ever'body bad luck: an' I'm a-goin' to
live up hyeh on the mountain jes' as long as I can.
I don't want you to think I'm a-complainin' — fer
I ain't. Only hit does seem sort o' curious that
You'd let me be down hyeh — with me a-keerin' fer
nobody now, an' nobody a-keerin' fer me. But
Thy ways is inscrutable — leastwise, that's whut the
circuit-rider says — an' I ain't got a word more to
say — Amen."

Chad rose then and Jack, who had sat perfectly
still, with his head cocked to one side, and his ears
straight forward in wonder over this strange pro
ceeding, sprang into the air, when Chad picked up
his gun, and, with a joyful bark, circled a clump
of bushes and sped back, leaping as high as the lit
tle fellow's head and trying to lick his face — for
Jack was a rover, too.

The sun was low when the two waifs turned their
backs upon it, and the blue shadows in valley and
ravine were darkening fast. Down the spur they
went swiftly — across the river and up the slope
of Pine Mountain. As they climbed, Chad heard
the last faint sound of a cow-bell far below him
and he stopped short, with a lump in his throat that

9

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

hurt. Soon darkness fell, and, on the very top, the
boy made a fire with his flint and steel, cooked a lit
tle bacon, warmed his corn-pone, munched them
and, wrapping his blanket around him and letting
Jack curl into the hollow of his legs and stomach,
turned his face to the kindly stars and went to sleep

II

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

I^WICE, during the night, Jack roused him by
trying to push himself farther under the
blanket and Chad rose to rebuild the fire. The
third time he was awakened by the subtle pre
science of dawn and his eyes opened on a flaming
radiance in the east. Again from habit he started
to spring hurriedly to his feet and, again sharply
conscious, he lay down again. There was no wood
to cut, no fire to rekindle, no water to carry from
the spring, no cow to milk, no corn to hoe; there
was nothing to do — nothing. Morning after morn
ing, with a day's hard toil at a man's task before
him, what would he not have given, when old Jim
called him, to have stretched his aching little legs
down the folds of the thick feather-bed and
slipped back into the delicious rest of sleep and
dreams ? Now he was his own master and, with a
happy sense of freedom, he brushed the dew from
his face and, shifting the chunk under his head,
pulled his old cap down a little more on one side
and closed his eyes. But sleep would not come and

II

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Chad had his first wonder over the perverse result
of the full choice to do, or not to do. At once, the
first keen savor of freedom grew less sweet to his
nostrils and, straightway, he began to feel the first
pressure of the chain of duties that was to be forged
for him out of his perfect liberty, link by link, and
he lay vaguely wondering.

Meanwhile, the lake of dull red behind the
jagged lines of rose and crimson that streaked the
east began to glow and look angry. A sheen of
fiery vapor shot upward and spread swiftly over
the miracle of mist that had been wrought in the
night. An ocean of it and, white and thick as snow-
dust, it filled valley, chasm, and ravine with mys
tery and silence up to the dark jutting points and
dark waving lines of range after range that looked
like breakers, surged up by some strange new law
from an under-sea of foam; motionless, it swept
down the valleys, poured swift torrents through
high gaps in the hills and one long noiseless cataract
over a lesser range — all silent, all motionless, like
a great white sea stilled in the fury of a storm.
Morning after morning, the boy had looked upon
just such glory, calmly watching the mist part, like
the waters, for the land, and the day break, with
one phrase, "Let there be light," ever in his mind—
for Chad knew his Bible. And, most often, in soft
splendor, trailing cloud-mist, and yellow light
leaping from crest to crest, and in the singing of

12

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

\xtfds and the shining of leaves and dew — there was
light.

But that morning there was a hush in the woods
that Chad understood. On a sudden, a light wind
scurried through the trees and showered the mist-
drops down. The smoke from his fire shot through
the low undergrowth, without rising, and the start
ing mists seemed to clutch with long, white fingers
at the tree-tops, as though loath to leave the safe,
warm earth for the upper air. A little later, he felt
some great shadow behind him, and he turned his
face to see black clouds marshalling on either flank
of the heavens and fitting their black wings to
gether, as though the retreating forces of the night
were gathering for a last sweep against the east.
A sword flashed blindingly from the dome high
above them and, after it, came one shaking peal
that might have been the command to charge, for
Chad saw the black hosts start fiercely. Afar off,
the wind was coming; the trees began to sway
above him, and the level sea of mist below began
to swell, and the wooded breakers seemed to pitch
angrily.

Challenging tongues ran quivering up the east,
and the lake of red coals under them began to heave
fiercely in answer. On either side the lightning
leaped upward and forward, striking straight and
low, sometimes, as though it were ripping up the
horizon to let into the conflict the host of dropping

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

stars. Then the artillery of the thunder crashed
in earnest through the shaking heavens, and the
mists below pitched like smoke belched from gi
gantic unseen cannon. The coming sun answered
with upleaping swords of fire and, as the black
thunder hosts swept overhead, Chad saw, for one
moment, the whole east in a writhing storm of fire.
A thick darkness rose from the first crash of battle
and, with the rush of wind and rain, the mighty
conflict went on unseen.

Chad had seen other storms at sunrise, but some
thing happened now and he could never recall the
others nor ever forget this. All it meant to him,
young as he was then, was unrolled slowly as the
years came on — more than the first great rebellion
of the powers of darkness when, in the beginning,
the Master gave the first command that the seven
days' work of His hand should float through space,
smitten with the welcoming rays of a million suns;
more than the beginning thus of light — of life;
more even than the first birth of a spirit in a living
thing: for, long afterward, he knew that it meant
the dawn of a new consciousness to him — the birth
of a new spirit within him, and the foreshadowed
pain of its slow mastery over his passion-racked
body and heart. Never was there a crisis, bodily
or spiritual, on the battle-field or alone under the
stars, that this storm did not come back to him.
And, always, through all doubt, and, indeed, in the

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

end, when it came to him for the last time on his
bed of death, the slow and sullen dispersion of wind
and rain on the mountain that morning far, far
back in his memory, and the quick coming of the
Sun-king's victorious light over the glad hills and
trees held out to him the promise of a final victory
to the Sun-king's King over the darkness of all
death and the final coming to his own brave spirit
of peace and rest.

So Chad, with Jack drawn close to him, lay back,
awe-stricken and with his face wet from mysterious
tears. The comfort of the childish self-pity that
came with every thought of himself, wandering, a
lost spirit along the mountain-tops, was gone like
a dream and ready in his heart was the strong new
purpose to strike into the world for himself. He
even took it as a good omen, when he rose, to find
his fire quenched, the stopper of his powder-horn
out, and the precious black grains scattered hope
lessly on the wet earth. There were barely more
than three charges left, and something had to be
done at once. First, he must get farther away from
old Nathan: the neighbors might search for him
and find him and take him back.

So he started out, brisk and shivering, along the
ridge path with Jack bouncing before him. An
hour later, he came upon a hollow tree, filled with
doty wood which he could tear out with his hands
and he built a fire and broiled a little more bacon.

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Jack got only a bit this time and barked reproach
fully for more; but Chad shook his head and the
dog started out, with both eyes open, to look for
his own food. The sun was high enough now to
make the drenched world flash like an emerald
and its warmth felt good, as Chad tramped the
topmost edge of Pine Mountain, where the brush
was not thick and where, indeed, he often found
a path running a short way and turning into some
ravine — the trail of cattle and sheep and the path
way between one little valley settlement and an
other. He must have made ten miles and more by
noon — for he was a sturdy walker and as tireless
almost as Jack — and ten miles is a long way in the
mountains, even now. So, already, Chad was far
enough away to have no fear of pursuit, even if old
Nathan wanted him back, which was doubtful. On
the top of the next point, Jack treed a squirrel and
Chad took a rest and brought him down, shot
through the head and, then and there, skinned and
cooked him and divided with Jack squarely.

"Jack," he said, as he reloaded his gun, "we
can't keep this up much longer. I hain't got more'n
two more loads o' powder here."

And, thereupon, Jack leaped suddenly in the air
and, turning quite around, lighted with his nose
pointed, as it was before he sprang. Chad cocked
the old gun and stepped forward. A low hiss
ing whir rose a few feet to one side of the path

16

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

and, very carefully, the boy climbed a fallen trunk
and edged his way, very carefully, toward the
sound: and there, by a dead limb and with his ugly
head reared three inches above his coil of springs,
was a rattlesnake. The sudden hate in the boy's
face was curious — it was instinctive, primitive,
deadly. He must shoot ofF-hand now and he
looked down the long barrel, shaded with tin, until
the sight caught on one of the beady, unblinking
eyes and pulled the trigger. Jack leaped with the
sound, in spite of Chad's yell of warning, which
was useless, for the ball had gone true and the poi
son was set loose in the black, crushed head.

r'Jack," said Chad, "we just got to go down
now."

So they went on swiftly through the heat of the
early afternoon. It was very silent up there. Now
and then, a brilliant blue-jay would lilt from a
stunted oak with the flute-like love-notes of spring;
or a lonely little brown fellow would hop with a
low chirp from one bush to another as though he
had been lost up there for years and had grown
quite hopeless about seeing his kind again. When
there was a gap in the mountains, he could hear the
querulous, senseless love-quarrel of flickers going
on below him; passing a deep ravine, the note of
the wood-thrush — that shy lyrist of the hills-
might rise to him from a dense covert of maple
and beech: or, with a startling call, a red-crested

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

cock of the woods would beat his white-striped
wings from spur to spur, as though he were keep
ing close to the long swells of an unseen sea. Sev
eral times, a pert flicker squatting like a knot
to a dead limb or the crimson plume of a cock of
the woods, as plain as a splash of blood on a wall
of vivid green, tempted him to let loose his last
load, but he withstood them. A little later, he saw
a fresh bear-track near a spring below the head of
a ravine; and, later still, he heard the far-away
barking of a hound and a deer leaped lightly into
an open sunny spot and stood with uplifted hoof
and pointed ears. This was too much and the boy's
gun followed his heart to his throat, but the buck
sprang lightly into the bush and vanished noise
lessly.

The sun had dropped midway between the
zenith and the blue bulks rolling westward and,
at the next gap, a broader path ran through it
and down the mountain. This, Chad knew, led
to a settlement and, with a last look of choking
farewell to his own world, he turned down. At
once, the sense of possible human companionship
was curiously potent: at once, the boy's half-wild
manner changed and, though alert and still watch
ful, he whistled cheerily to Jack, threw his gun
over his shoulder, and walked erect and confident.
His pace slackened. Carelessly now his feet
tramped beds of soft exquisite moss and lone little

18

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

settlements of forget-me-nots, and his long rifle-
barrel brushed laurel blossoms down in a shower
behind him. Once even, he picked up one of the
pretty bells and looked idly at it, turning it bottom
upward. The waxen cup might have blossomed
from a tiny waxen star. There was a little green
star for a calyx; above this, a little white star with
its prongs outstretched — tiny arms to hold up the
pink-flecked chalice for the rain and dew. There
came a time when he thought of it as a star-blos
som; but now his greedy tongue swept the honey
from it and he dropped it without another thought
to the ground. At the first spur down which the
road turned, he could see smoke in the valley. The
laurel blooms and rhododendron bells hung in
thicker clusters and of a deeper pink. Here and
there was a blossoming wild cucumber and an um
brella-tree with huger flowers and leaves; and,
sometimes, a giant magnolia with a thick creamy
flower that the boy could not have spanned with
both hands and big, thin oval leaves, a man's stride
from tip to stem. Soon, he was below the sunlight
and in the cool shadows where the water ran
noisily and the air hummed with the wings of bees.
On the last spur, he came upon a cow browsing on
sassafras-bushes right in the path and the last
shadow of his loneliness straightway left him. She
was old, mild, and unfearing, and she started down
the road in front of him as though she thought he

19

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

had come to drive her home, or as though she knew
he was homeless and was leading him to shelter. A
little farther on, the river flashed up a welcome to
him through the trees and at the edge of the water,
her mellow bell led him down stream and he fol
lowed. In the next hollow, he stooped to drink
from a branch that ran across the road and, when
he rose to start again, his bare feet stopped as
though riven suddenly to the ground; for, half
way up the next low slope, was another figure as
motionless as his — with a bare head, bare feet, a
startled face and wide eyes — but motionless only
until the eyes met his: then there was a flash of
bright hair and scarlet homespun, and the little
feet, that had trod down the centuries to meet his,
left the earth as though they had wings and Chad
saw them, in swift flight, pass silently over the hill.
The next moment, Jack came too near the old
brindle and, with a sweep of her horns at him and
a toss of tail and heels in the air, she, too, swept
over the slope and on, until the sound of her bell
passed out of hearing. Even to-day, in lonely
parts of the Cumberland, the sudden coming of a
stranger may put women and children to flight —
something like this had happened before to Chad
— but the sudden desertion and the sudden silence
drew him in a flash back to the lonely cabin he had
left and the lonely graves under the big poplar and,
with a quivering lip, he sat down. Jack, too,

20

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

dropped to his haunches and sat hopeless, but not
for long. The chill of night was coming on and
Jack was getting hungry. So he rose presently and
trotted ahead and squatted again, looking back and
waiting. But still Chad sat irresolute and, in a
moment, Jack heard something that disturbed him,
for he threw his ears toward the top of the hill and,
with a growl, trotted back to Chad and sat close to
him, looking up the slope. Chad rose then with his
thumb on the lock of his gun and over the hill came
a tall figure and a short one, about Chad's size;
and a dog, with white feet and white face, that was
bigger than Jack: and behind them, three more fig
ures, one of which was the tallest of the group. All
stopped when they saw Chad, who dropped the butt
of his gun at once to the ground. At once the
strange dog, with a low snarl, started down toward
the two little strangers with his yellow ears pointed,
the hair bristling along his back, and his teeth in
sight. Jack answered the challenge with an eager
whimper, but dropped his tail, at Chad's sharp
command — for Chad did not care to meet the
world as an enemy, when he was looking for a
friend. The group stood dumb with astonish
ment for a moment and the small boy's mouth
was wide-open with surprise, but the strange
dog came on with his tail rigid, and lifting his
feet high.

"Begone!" said Chad, sharply, but the dog
21

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

would not begone; he still came on as though bent
on a fight.

"Call yo' dog off," Chad called aloud. "My
dog'll kill him. You better call him off," he called
again, in some concern, but the tall boy in front
laughed scornfully.

"Let's see him," he said, and the small one
laughed, too.

Chad's eyes flashed — no boy can stand an insult
to his dog — and the curves of his open lips snapped
together in a straight red line. "All right," he
said, placidly, and, being tired, he dropped back on
a stone by the wayside to await results. The very
tone of his voice struck all shackles of restraint
from Jack, who, with a springy trot, went forward
slowly, as though he were making up a definite plan
of action; for Jack had a. fighting way of his own,
which Chad knew.

"Sick him, Whizzer!" shouted the tall boy, and
the group of five hurried eagerly down the hill and
halted in a half circle about Jack and Chad: so that
it looked an uneven conflict, indeed, for the two
waifs from over Pine Mountain.

The strange dog was game and wasted no time.
With a bound he caught Jack by the throat, tossed
him several feet away, and sprang for him again.
Jack seemed helpless against such strength and
fury, but Chad's face was as placid as though it
had been Jack who was playing the winning game.

22

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

Jack himself seemed little disturbed; he took his
punishment without an outcry of rage or pain.
You would have thought he had quietly come to
the conclusion that all he could hope to do was to
stand the strain until his opponent had worn him
self out. But that was not Jack's game, and Chad
knew it. The tall boy was chuckling, and his
brother of Chad's age was bent almost double with
delight.

"Kill my dawg, will he ?" he cried, shrilly.

"Oh, Lawdy!" groaned the tall one.

Jack was much bitten and chewed by this time,
and, while his pluck and purpose seemed un
changed, Chad had risen to his feet and was be
ginning to look anxious. The three silent specta
tors behind pressed forward and, for the first time,
one of these — the tallest of the group — spoke:

"Take yo' dawg off, Daws Dillon," he said, with
quiet authority; but Daws shook his head, and the
little brother looked indignant.

"He said he'd kill him," said Daws, tauntingly.

"Yo' dawg's bigger and hit ain't fair," said the
other again and, seeing Chad's worried look, he
pressed suddenly forward; but Chad had begun to
smile, and was sitting down on his stone again.
Jack had leaped this time, with his first growl dur
ing the fight, and Whizzer gave a sharp cry of sur
prise and pain. Jack had caught him by the throat,
close behind the jaws, and the big dog shook and

23

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

growled and shook again. Sometimes Jack was
lifted quite from the ground, but he seemed
clamped to his enemy to stay. Indeed he shut his
eyes, finally, and seemed to go quite to sleep. The
big dog threshed madly and swung and twisted,
howling with increasing pain and terror and in
creasing weakness, while Jack's face was as peace
ful as though he were a puppy once more and
hanging to his mother's neck instead of her breast,
asleep. By and by, Whizzer ceased to shake and
began to pant; and, thereupon, Jack took his turn
at shaking, gently at first, but with maddening reg
ularity and without at all loosening his hold. The
big dog was too weak to resist soon and, when Jack
began to jerk savagely, Whizzer began to gasp.

"You take yo' dawg off," called Daws, sharply.

Chad never moved.

"Will you say 'nough for him?" he asked,
quietly; and the tall one of the silent three
laughed.

"Call him off, I tell ye," repeated Daws, sav
agely; but again Chad never moved, and Daws
started for a club. Chad's new friend came for
ward.

" Hoi' on, now, hoi' on," he said, easily. " None
o' that, I reckon."

Daws stopped with an oath. " Whut you got to
do with this, Tom Turner ?"

"You started this fight," said Tom.

24

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

"I don't keer ef I did — take him off," Daws an
swered, savagely.

''Will you say 'nough fer him?" said Chad
again, and again Tall Tom chuckled. The little
brother clinched his fists and turned white with fear
for Whizzer and fury for Chad, while Daws
looked at the tall Turner, shook his head from side
to side, like a balking steer, and dropped his eyes:

"Y-e-s," he said, sullenly.

"Say it, then," said Chad, and this time Tall
Tom roared aloud, and even his two silent brothers
laughed. Again Daws, with a furious oath, started
for the dogs with his club, but Chad's ally stepped
between.

"You say 'nough, Daws Dillon," he said, and
Daws looked into the quiet half-smiling face and at
the stalwart two grinning behind.

"Takin* up agin yo'1 neighbors fer a wood-colt,
air ye ? "

" I'm a-takin' up fer what's right and fair. How
do you know he's a wood-colt — an' suppose he is ?
You say 'nough now, or "

Again Daws looked at the dogs. Jack had taken
a fresh grip and was shaking savagely and steadily.
Whizzer's tongue was out — once his throat rattled.

''Nough!" growled Daws, angrily, and the
word was hardly jerked from his lips before Chad
was on his feet and prying Jack's jaws apart. " He
ain't much hurt," he said, looking at the bloody

25

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

hold which Jack had clamped on his enemy's throat,
" but he'd a-killed him though, he al'ays does. Thar
ain't no chance fer no dog, when Jack gits that
holt."

Then he raised his eyes and looked into the
quivering face of the owner of the dog — the little
fellow — who, with the bellow of a yearling bull,
sprang at him. Again Chad's lips took a straight
red line and being on one knee was an advantage,
for, as he sprang up, he got both underholds and
there was a mighty tussle, the spectators yelling
with frantic delight.

"Trip him, Tad," shouted Daws, fiercely.

"Stick to him, little un," shouted Tom, and his
brothers, stoical Dolph and Rube, danced about
madly. Even with underholds, Chad, being much
the shorter of the two, had no advantage that he
did net need, and, with a sharp thud, the two fierce
little bodies struck the road side by side, spurting
up a cloud of dust.

"Dawg — fall!" cried Rube, and Dolph rushed
forward to pull the combatants apart.

"He don't fight fair," said Chad, panting, and
rubbing his right eye which his enemy had tried to
"gouge";. "but lemme at him — I can fight that-
away, too." Tall Tom held them apart.

"You're too little, and he don't fight fair. I
re(kon you better go on home — you two — an' yo'
mtan dawg," he said to Daws; and the two Dil-

26

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

Ions — the one sullen and the other crying with rage
— moved away with Whizzer slinking close to the
ground after them. But at the top of the hill both
turned with bantering yells, derisive wriggling of
their fingers at their noses, and with other rude
gestures. And, thereupon, Dolph and Rube wanted
to go after them, but the tall brother stopped them
with a word.

"That's about all they're fit fer," he said, con
temptuously, and he turned to Chad.

"Whar you from, little man, an* whar you go-
in', an' what mought yo' name be ?"

Chad told his name, and where he was from, and
stopped.

"Whar you goin' ?" said Tom again, without a
word or look of comment.

Chad knew the disgrace and the suspicion that
his answer was likely to generate, but he looked his
questioner in the face fearlessly.

"I don't know whar I'm goin'."

The big fellow looked at him keenly, but kindly.

"You ain't lyin' an' I reckon you better come
with us." He turned for the first time to his broth
ers and the two nodded.

"You an' yo' dawg, though Mammy don't like
dawgs much; but you air a stranger an* you ain't
afeerd, an' you can fight — you an* yo' dawg — an'
I know Dad'll take ye both in."

So Chad and Jack followed the long strides of

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

the three Turners over the hill and to the bend of
the river, where were three long cane fishing-poles
with their butts stuck in the mud — the brothers had
been fishing, when the flying figure of the little girl
told them of the coming of a stranger into those
lonely wilds. Taking these up, they strode on —
Chad after them and Jack trotting, in cheerful con
fidence, behind. It is probable that Jack noticed,
as soon as Chad, the swirl of smoke rising from a
broad ravine that spread into broad fields, skirted
by the great sweep of the river, for he sniffed the
air sharply, and trotted suddenly ahead. It was a
cheering sight for Chad. Two negro slaves were
coming from work in a corn-field close by, and
Jack's hair rose when he saw them, and, with a
growl, he slunk behind his master. Dazed, Chad
looked at them.

"Whut've them fellers got on their faces?" he
asked. Tom laughed.

"Hain't you nuver seed a nigger afore?" he
asked.

Chad shook his head.

"Lots o' folks from yo* side o' the mountains
nuver have seed a nigger," said Tom. "Sometimes
hit skeers 'em."

"Hit don't skeer me," said Chad.

At the gate of the barn-yard, in which was a
long stable with a deeply sloping roof, stood the
old brindle cow, who turned to look at Jack, and,

28

FIGHTING THEIR WAY

as Chad followed the three brothers through the
yard gate, he saw a slim scarlet figure vanish
swiftly from the porch into the house.

In a few minutes, Chad was inside the big log-
cabin and before a big log-fire, with Jack between
his knees and turning his soft human eyes keenly
from one to another of the group about his little
master, telling how the mountain cholera had car
ried ofF the man and the woman who had been
father and mother to him, and their children; at
which the old mother nodded her head in growing
sympathy, for there were two fresh mounds in her
own graveyard on the point of a low hill not far
away; how old Nathan Cherry, whom he hated,
had wanted to bind him out, and how, rather than
have Jack mistreated and himself be ill-used, he
had run away along the mountain-top; how he had
slept one night under a log with Jack to keep him
warm; how he had eaten sassafras and birch back
and had gotten drink from the green water-bulbs
of the wild honeysuckle; and how, on the second
day, being hungry, and without powder for his gun,
he had started, when the sun sank, for the shad
ows of the valley at the mouth of Kingdom Come.
Before he was done, the old mother knocked the
ashes from her clay pipe and quietly went into the
kitchen, and Jack, for all his good manners, could
not restrain a whine of eagerness when he heard the
crackle of bacon in a frying-pan and the delicious

29

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

smell of it struck his quivering nostrils. After dark,
old Joel, the father of the house, came in — a giant
in size and a mighty hunter — and he slapped his
big thighs and roared until the rafters seemed to
shake when Tall Tom told him about the dog-fight
and the boy-fight with the family in the next cove:
for already the clanship was forming that was to
add the last horror to the coming great war and
prolong that horror for nearly half a century after
its close.

By and by, the scarlet figure of little Melissa
came shyly out of the dark shadows behind and
drew shyly closer and closer, until she was crouched
in the chimney corner with her face shaded from
the fire by one hand and a tangle of yellow hair,
listening and watching him with her big, solemn
eyes, quite fearlessly. Already the house was full
of children and dependents, but no word passed be
tween old Joel and the old mother, for no word
was necessary. Two waifs who had so suffered
and who could so fight could have a home under
that roof if they pleased, forever. And Chad's
sturdy little body lay deep in a feather-bed, and
the friendly shadows from a big fireplace flickered
hardly thrice over him before he was asleep. And
Jack, for that night at least, was allowed to curl up
by the covered coals, or stretch out his tired feet, if
he pleased, to a warmth that in all the nights of his
life, perhaps, he had never known before.

30

Ill

BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

was awakened by the touch of a cold
nose at his ear, the rasp of a warm tongue
across his face, and the tug of two paws at his
cover. " Git down, Jack ! " he said, and Jack, with
a whimper of satisfaction, went back to the fire that
was roaring up the chimney, and a deep voice
laughed and called:

"I reckon you better git up, little man!"
Old Joel was seated at the fire with his huge legs
crossed and a pipe in his mouth. It was before
dawn, but the household was busily astir. There
was the sound of tramping in the frosty air outside
and the noise of getting breakfast ready in the
kitchen. As Chad sprang up, he saw Melissa's
yellow hair drop out of sight behind the foot of the
bed in the next corner, and he turned his face
quickly, and, slipping behind the foot of his own
bed and into his coat and trousers, was soon at the
fire himself, with old Joel looking him over with
shrewd kindliness.

"Yo' dawg's got a heap o' sense," said the old
hunter, and Chad told him how old Jack was, and

31

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

how a cattle-buyer from the "settlements" of the
Bluegrass had given him to Chad when Jack was
badly hurt and his owner thought he was going to
die. And how Chad had nursed him and how the
two had always been together ever since. Through
the door of the kitchen, Chad could see the old
mother with her crane and pots and cooking-pans;
outside, he could hear the moo of the old brindle,
the bleat of her calf, the nicker of a horse, one
lusty sheep-call, and the hungry bellow of young
cattle at the barn, where Tall Tom was feeding the
stock. Presently Rube stamped in with a back log
and Dolph came through with a milk-pail.

"I can milk," said Chad, eagerly, and Dolph
laughed.

"All right, I'll give ye a chance," he said, and
old Joel looked pleased, for it was plain that the lit
tle stranger was not going to be a drone in the
household, and, taking his pipe from his mouth but
without turning his head, he called out:

"Git up thar, Melissy."

Getting no answer, he looked around to find Me
lissa standing at the foot of the bed.

"Come here to the fire, little gal, nobody's a-
goin' to eat ye."

Melissa came forward, twisting her hands in
front of her, and stood, rubbing one bare foot over
the other on the hearth-stones. She turned her face
with a blush when Chad suddenly looked at her,

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

and, thereafter, the little man gazed steadily into
the fire in order to embarrass her no more.

With the breaking of light over the mountain,,
breakfast was over and the work of the day began.
Tom was off to help a neighbor "snake" logs down
the mountain and into Kingdom Come, where they
would be "rafted" and floated on down the river to
the capital — if a summer tide should come — to be
turned into fine houses for the people of the Blue-
grass. Dolph and Rube disappeared at old Joel's
order to "go meet them sheep." Melissa helped
her mother clear away the table and wash the
dishes; and Chad, out of the tail of his eye, saw her
surreptitiously feeding greedy Jack, while old Joel
still sat by the fire, smoking silently. Chad stepped
outside. The air was chill, but the mists were ris
ing and a long band of rich, warm light lay over
a sloping spur up the river, and where this met the
blue morning shadows, the dew was beginning to
drip and to sparkle. Chad could not stand inaction
long, and his eye lighted up when he heard a great
bleating at the foot of the spur and the shouts of
men and boys. Just then the old mother called
from the rear of the cabin:

"Joel, them sheep air comin'!"

The big form of the old hunter filled the door
way and Jack bounded out between his legs, while
little Melissa appeared with two books, ready for
school. Down the road came the flock of lean

33

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

mountain-sheep, Dolph and Rube driving them.
Behind, slouched the Dillon tribe — Daws and
Whizzer and little Tad; Daws's father, old Tad,
long, lean, stooping, crafty: and two new ones-
cousins to Daws — Jake and Jerry, the giant twins.

"Joel Turner," said old Tad, sourly, "here's
yo' sheep!"

Joel had bought the Dillons' sheep and meant
to drive them to the county-seat ten miles down the
river. There had evidently been a disagreement
between the two when the trade was made, for Joel
pulled out a gray pouch of coonskin, took from it a
roll of bills, and, without counting them, held them
out.

"Tad Dillon," he said, shortly, "here's yo'
money!"

The Dillon father gave possession with a gest
ure and the Dillon faction, including Whizzer and
the giant twins, drew aside together — the father
morose; Daws watching Dolph and Rube with a
look of much meanness; little Tad behind him,
watching Chad, his face screwed up with hate; and
Whizzer, pretending not to see Jack, but darting
a surreptitious glance at him now and then, for then
and there was starting a feud that was to run fierce
ly on, long after the war was done.

"Git my hoss, Rube," said old Joel, and Rube
turned to the stable, while Dolph kept an eye on the
sheep, which were lying on the road or straggling

34

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

down the river. As Rube opened the stable-door,
a dirty white object bounded out, and Rube, with
a loud curse, tumbled over backward into the mud,
while a fierce old ram dashed with a triumphant
bleat for the open gate. Beelzebub, as the Tur
ner mother had christened the mischievous brute,
had been placed in the wrong stall and Beelzebub
was making for freedom. He gave another tri
umphant baa as he swept between Dolph's legs and
through the gate, and, with an answering chorus,
the silly sheep sprang to their feet and followed.
A sheep hates water, but not more than he loves
a leader, and Beelzebub feared nothing. Straight
for the water of the low ford the old conqueror
made and, in the wake of his masterful summons,
the flock swept, like a Mormon household, after
him. Then was there a commotion indeed. Old
Joel shouted and swore; Dolph shouted and swore
and Rube shouted and swore. Old Dillon smiled
grimly, Daws and little Tad shouted with derisive
laughter, and the big twins grinned. The mother
came to the door, broom in hand, and, with a frown
ing face, watched the sheep splash through the wa
ter and into the woods across the river. Little Me
lissa looked frightened. Whizzer, losing his head,
had run down after the sheep, barking and hasten
ing their flight, until called back with a mighty
curse from old Joel, while Jack sat on his haunches
looking at Chad and waiting for orders.

35

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Goddlemighty!" said Joel, "how air we goin'
to git them sheep back ?" Up and up rose the bleat
ing and baaing, for Beelzebub, like the prince of
devils that he was, seemed bent on making all the
mischief possible.

"How air we goin' to git 'em back ?"

Chad nodded then, and Jack with an eager yelp
made for the river — Whizzer at his heels. Again
old Joel yelled furiously, as did Dolph and Rube,
and Whizzer stopped and turned back with a
drooping tail, but Jack plunged in. He knew but
one voice behind him and Chad's was not in the
chorus.

"Call yo' dawg back, boy," said Joel, sternly,
and Chad opened his lips with anything but a call
for Jack to come back — it was instead a fine high
yell of encouragement and old Joel was speechless.

"That dawg'll kill them sheep," said Daws Dil
lon aloud.

Joel's face was red and his eyes rolled.

"Call that damned feist back, I tell ye," he
shouted at last. "Hyeh, Rube, git my gun, git my
gun!"

Rube started for the house, but Chad laughed.
Jack had reached the other bank now, and was
flashing like a ball of gray light through the weeds
and up into the woods; and Chad slipped down the
bank and into the river, hieing him on excitedly.

Joel was beside himself and he, too, lumbered

36

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

down to the river, followed by Dolph, while the
Dillons roared from the road.

"Boy!" he roared. "Eh, boy, eh! what's his
name, Dolph ? Call him back, Dolph, call the lit
tle devil back. If I don't wear him out with a
hickory; holler fer 'em, damn 'em! Heh-o-oo-ee! "
The old hunter's bellow rang through the woods
like a dinner-horn. Dolph was shouting, too, but
Jack and Chad seemed to have gone stone-deaf;
and Rube, who had run down with the gun, started
with an oath into the river himself, but Joel halted
him.

"Hoi' on, hoi' on!" he said, listening. "By the
eternal, he's a-roundin' 'em up!" The sheep were
evidently much scattered, to judge from the bleat
ing; but here, there, and everywhere, they could
hear Jack's bark, while Chad seemed to have
stopped in the woods and, from one place, was
shouting orders to his dog. Plainly, Jack was no
sheep-killer and by and by Dolph and Rube left
off shouting, and old Joel's face became placid;
and all of them from swearing helplessly fell to
waiting quietly. Soon the bleating became less and
less, and began to concentrate on the mountain-side.
Not far below, they could hear Chad:

"Coo-oo-sheep ! Coo-oo-sh'p-cooshy-cooshy-coo-
oo-sheep!"

The sheep were answering. They were coming
down a ravine, and Chad's voice rang out above:

37

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Somebody come across, an' stand on each side
o' the holler."

Dolph and Rube waded across then, and soon
the sheep came crowding down the narrow ravine
with Jack barking behind them and Chad shooing
them down. But for Dolph and Rube, Beelzebub
would have led them up or down the river, and it
was hard work to get him into the water until Jack,
who seemed to know what the matter was, sharply
nipped several sheep near him. These sprang vio
lently forward, the whole flock in front pushed for
ward, too, and Beelzebub was thrust from the
bank. Nothing else being possible, the old ram
settled himself with a snort into the water and
made for the other shore. Chad and Jack followed
and, when they reached the road, Beelzebub was
again a prisoner; the sheep, swollen like sponges,
were straggling down the river, and Dillons and
Turners were standing around in silence. Jack
shook himself and dropped panting in the dust at
his master's feet, without so much as an upward
glance or a lift of his head for a pat of praise. As
old Joel raised one foot heavily to his stirrup, he
grunted, quietly:

"Well, I be damned." And when he was com
fortably in his saddle he said again, with unction:

"I do be damned. I'll just take that dawg to
help drive them sheep down to town. Come on,
boy."

38

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

Chad started joyfully, but the old mother called
from the door: "Who's a-goin' to take this gal to
school, I'd like to know?"

Old Joel pulled in his horse, straightened one
leg, and looked all around — first at the Dillons,
who had started away, then at Dolph and Rube,
who were moving determinedly after the sheep (it
was Court Day in town and they could not miss
Court Day), and then at Chad, who halted.

" Boy," he said, "don't you want to go to school
—you ought to go to school ? "

"Yes/' said Chad, obediently, though the trip to
town — and Chad had never been to a town — was a
sore temptation.

"Go on, then, an' tell the teacher I sent ye.
Here, Mammy — eh, what's yo' name, boy ? Oh,
Mammy — Chad, here, '11 take her. Take good
keer o' that gal, boy, an' learn yo' a-b-abs like a
man now."

Melissa came shyly forward from the door and
Joel whistled to Jack and called him, but Jack,
though he liked nothing better than to drive sheep,
lay still, looking at Chad.

"Go 'long, Jack," said Chad, and Jack sprang
up and was off, though he stopped again and looked
back, and Chad had to tell him again to go on. In
a moment dog, men, and sheep were moving in a
cloud of dust around a bend in the road and little
Melissa was at the gate.

39

'Take good keer of 'Lissy," said the mother
from the porch, kindly; and Chad, curiously
touched all at once by the trust shown him, stalked
ahead like a little savage, while Melissa with her
basket followed silently behind. The boy never
thought of taking the basket himself — that is not
the way of men with women in the hills — and
not once did he look around or speak on the
way up the river and past the blacksmith's shop
and the grist-mill just beyond the mouth of King
dom Come; but when they arrived at the log
school-house it was his turn to be shy and he hung
back to let Melissa go in first. Within, there was no
floor but the bare earth, no window but the cracks
between the logs, and no desks but the flat sides
of slabs, held up by wobbling pegs. On one side
were girls in linsey and homespun — some thin, un
dersized, underfed, and with weak, dispirited eyes
and yellow tousled hair; others, round-fa ced,
round-eyed, dark, and sturdy; most of them large-
waisted and round-shouldered — especially the
older ones — from work in the fields; but, now and
then, one like Melissa, the daughter of a valley-
farmer, erect, agile, spirited, intelligent. On the
other side were the boys, in physical characteris
tics the same and suggesting the same social di
visions: at the top the farmer — now and then a
slave-holder and perhaps of gentle blood— who
had dropped by the way on the westward march
of civilization and had cleared some rich river-

40

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

bottom and a neighboring summit of the moun
tains, where he sent his sheep and cattle to
graze; where a creek opened into this valley
some free-settler, whose grandfather had fought
at King's Mountain — usually of Scotch-Irish de
scent, often English, but sometimes German or
sometimes even Huguenot — would have his rude
home of logs; under him, and in wretched cabins
at the head of the creek or on the washed spur of
the mountain above, or in some "deadenin"' still
higher up and swept by mists and low-trailing
clouds, the poor white trash — worthless descend
ants of the servile and sometimes criminal class
who might have traced their origin back to the
slums of London — hand-to-mouth tenants of the
valley-aristocrat, hewers of wood for him in the
lowlands and upland guardians of his cattle and
sheep. And finally, walking up and down the earth
floor — stern and smooth of face and of a preter
natural dignity hardly to be found elsewhere —
the mountain school-master.

It was a "blab school," as the mountaineers
characterize a school in which the pupils study
aloud, and the droning chorus — as shrill as locust
cries — ceased suddenly when Chad came in, and
every eye was turned on him with a sexless gaze
of curiosity that made his face redden and his
heart throb. But he forgot them when the school
master pierced him with eyes that seemed to shoot
from under his heavy brows like a strong light

41

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

from deep darkness. Chad met them, nor did his
chin droop, and Caleb Hazel saw that the boy's
face was frank and honest, and that his eye was
fearless and kind, and, without question, he mo
tioned to a seat — with one wave of his hand set
ting Chad on the corner of a slab and the studious
drone to vibrating again. When the boy ventured
to glance around, he saw Daws Dillon in one cor
ner, making a face at him, and little Tad scowl
ing from behind a book: and on the other side,
among the girls, he saw another hostile face — next
little Melissa — which had the pointed chin and
the narrow eyes of the "Dillon breed," as old Joel
called the family, whose farm was at the mouth of
Kingdom Come and whose boundary touched his
own. When the first morning recess came — "little
recess," as it was called — the master kept Chad in
and asked him his name; if he had ever been to
school, and whether he knew his A B C's; and he
showed no surprise when Chad, without shame,
told him no. So the master got Melissa's spelling-
book and pointed out the first seven letters of the
alphabet, and made Chad repeat them three times
— watching the boy's earnest, wrinkling brow close
ly and with growing interest. When school "took
up" again, Chad was told to say them aloud in con
cert with the others — which he did, until he could
repeat them without looking at his book, and the
master saw him thus saying them while his eyes

42

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

roved around the room, and he nodded to himself
with satisfaction — for he was accustomed to vis
ible communion with himself, in school and out.
At noon — "big recess" — Melissa gave Chad some
corn-bread and bacon, and the boys gathered
around him, while the girls looked at him curiously,
merely because he was a stranger, and some of them
— especially the Dillon girl — whispered, and Chad
blushed and was uncomfortable, for once the Dillon
girl laughed unkindly. The boys had no games,
but they jumped and threw "rocks" with great ac
curacy at a little birch-tree, and Daws and Tad
always spat on their stones and pointed with the
forefinger of the left hand first at what they were
going to throw at, while Chad sat to one side and
took no part, though he longed to show them what
he could do. By and by they fell to wrestling, and
finally Tad bantered him for a trial. Chad hesi
tated, and his late enemy misunderstood.

"I'll give ye both underholts agin," he said,
loftily, "you're afeerd!"

This was too much, and Chad sprang to his feet
and grappled, disdaining the proffered advantage,
and got hurled to the ground, his head striking
the earth violently, and making him so dizzy that
the brave smile with which he took his fall looked
rather sickly and pathetic.

"Yes, an' Whizzer can whoop yo' dawg, too,"
said Tad, and Chad saw that he was going to have

43

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

trouble with those Dillons, for Daws winked at the
other boys, and the Dillon girl laughed again
scornfully — at which Chad saw Melissa's eyes flash
and her hands clinch as, quite unconsciously, she
moved toward him to take his part; and all at once
he was glad that he had nobody else to champion
him.

"You wouldn* dare tech him if one of my
brothers was here," she said, indignantly, "an'
don't you dare tech him again, Tad Dillon. An
you — ' she said, witheringly, "you — ' she re
peated and stopped helpless for the want of words,
but her eyes spoke with the fierce authority of the
Turner clan, and its dominant power for half a
century, and Nancy Dillon shrank, though she
turned and made a spiteful face, when Melissa
walked toward the school-house alone.

That afternoon was the longest of Chad's life
— it seemed as though it would never come to an
end; for Chad had never sat so still for so long.
His throat got dry repeating the dreary round of
letters over and over and his head ached and he
fidgeted in his chair while the slow hours passed
and the sun went down behind the mountain and
left the school-house in rapidly cooling shadow.
His heart leaped when the last class was heard and
the signal was given that meant freedom for the
ittle prisoners; but Melissa sat pouting in her
^eat—she had missed her lesson and must be kept

44

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

in for a while. So Chad, too, kept his seat and
the master heard him say his letters, without the
book, and nodded his head as though to say to
himself that such quickness was exactly what he
had looked for. By the time Chad had learned
down to the letter O, Melissa was ready, for she
was quick, too, and it was her anger that made her
miss — and the two started home, Chad stalking
ahead once more. To save him, he could not say
a word of thanks, but how he wished that a bear
or a wild-cat would spring into the road! He
would fight it with teeth and naked hands to
show her how he felt and to save her from
harm.

The sunlight still lay warm and yellow far under
the crest of Pine Mountain, and they had not gone
far when Caleb Hazel overtook them and with
long strides forged ahead. The school-master
"boarded around" and it was his week with the
Turners, and Chad was glad, for he already loved
the tall, gaunt, awkward man who asked him
question after question so kindly — loved him as
much as he revered and feared him — and the
boy's artless, sturdy answers in turn pleased Caleb
Hazel. And when Chad told who had given
him Jack, the master began to talk about the far
away, curious country of which the cattle-dealer
had told Chad so much: where the land was level
and there were no mountains at all; where on one

45

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

farm might be more sheep, cattle, and slaves
than Chad had seen in all his life; where the peo
ple lived in big houses of stone and brick — what
brick was Chad could not imagine — and rode
along hard, white roads in shiny covered wagons,
with two "niggers" on a high seat in front and one
little "nigger" behind to open gates, and were proud
and very high-heeled indeed; where there were
towns that had more people than a whole county
in the mountains, with rock roads running through
them in every direction and narrow rock paths
along these roads — like rows of hearth-stones — for
the people to walk on — the land of the bluegrass
—the "settlemints of old Kaintuck."

And there were churches everywhere as tall as
trees and school-houses a-plenty; and big schools,
called colleges, to which the boys went when they
were through with the little schools. The master
had gone to one of these colleges for a year, and he
was trying to make enough money to go again.
And Chad must go some day, too; there was no
reason why he shouldn't, since any boy could do
anything he pleased if he only made up his mind
and worked hard and never gave up. The master
was an orphan, too, he said with a slow smile; he
had been an orphan for a long while, and indeed
the lonely struggle of his own boyhood was what
was helping to draw him to Chad. This college,
he said, was a huge brown house as big as a cliff

46

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

that the master pointed out, that, gray and sol
emn, towered high above the river; and with a
rock porch bigger than a great bowlder that hung
just under the cliff, with twenty long, long stone
steps to climb before one came to the big double
front door.

"How do you git thar ?" Chad asked so breath
lessly that Melissa looked quickly up with a sud
den foreboding that she might lose her little play
fellow some day. The master had walked, and it
took him a week. A good horse could make the trip
in four days, and the river-men floated logs down
the river to the capital in eight or ten days, ac
cording to the "tide." "When did they go? In
the spring, when the 'tides' came. The Turners
went down, didn't they, Melissa?" And Melissa
said that her brother Tom had made one trip, and
that Dolph and Rube were "might' nigh crazy"
to go that coming spring; and, thereupon, a mighty
resolution filled Chad's heart to the brim and
steadied his eyes, but he did not open his lips
then.

Dusk was settling when the Turner cabin came
in sight. None of the men-folks had come home
yet, and the mother was worried; there was wood
to cut and the cows to milk, and Chad's friend,
old Betsey the brindle, had strayed off again; but
she was glad to see Caleb Hazel, who, without a
word, went out to the wood-pile, took off his coat,

47

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

and swung the axe with mighty arms, while Chad
carried in the wood and piled it in the kitchen;
and then the two went after the old brindle to
gether.

When they got back there was a great tumult at
the cabin. Tom had brought some friends from
over the mountain, and had told the neighbors as
he came along that there was going to be a party
at his house that night.

So there was a great bustle about the barn where
Rube was getting the stock fed and the milking
done; and around the kitchen, where Dolph was
cutting more wood and piling it up at the door.
Inside, the mother was hurrying up supper with
Sintha, an older daughter, who had just come home
from a visit, and Melissa helping her, while old
Joel sat by the fire in the sleeping-room and
smoked, with Jack lying on the hearth, or any
where he pleased, for Jack, with his gentle ways,
was winning the household one by one. He
sprang up when he heard Chad's voice, and flew at
him, jumping up and pawing him affectionately and
licking his face while Chad hugged him and talked
to him as though he were human and a brother;
never before had the two been separated for a day.
So, while the master helped Rube at the barn and
Chad helped Dolph at the wood-pile, Jack hung
about his master — tired and hungry as he was and
much as he wanted to be by the fire or waiting in

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

the kitchen for a sly bit from Melissa, whom he
knew at once as the best of his new friends.

After supper, Dolph got out his banjo and played
" Shady Grove," and " Blind Coon Dog," and " Sug
ar Hill," and "Gamblin' Man," while Chad's eyes
glistened and his feet shuffled under his chair. And
when Dolph put the rude thing down on the bed
and went into the kitchen, Chad edged toward it
and, while old Joel was bragging about Jack to the
school-master, he took hold of it with trembling
fingers and touched the strings timidly. Then he
looked around cautiously: nobody was paying any
attention to him and he took it up into his lap and
began to pick, ever so softly. Nobody saw him
but Melissa, who slipped quietly to the back of
the room and drew near him. Softly and swiftly
Chad's fingers worked and Melissa could scarcely
hear the sound of the banjo under her father's loud
voice, but she could make out that he was playing
a tune that still vibrates unceasingly from the
Pennsylvania border to the pine-covered hills of
Georgia — "Sourwood Mountain." Melissa held
her breath while she listened — Dolph could not
play like that — and by and by she slipped quietly
to her father and pulled his sleeve and pointed to
Chad. Old Joel stopped talking, but Chad never
noticed; his head was bent over the neck of the
banjo, his body was swaying rhythmically, his
chubby fingers were going like lightning, and his

49

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

eyes were closed — the boy was fairly lost to the
world. The tune came out in the sudden silence,
clean-cut and swinging:

Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedle-dahdee-deel

rang the strings and old Joel's eyes danced.

"Sing it, boy! "he roared, "sing it!" And Chad
sprang from the bed, on fire with confusion and
twisting his fingers helplessly. He looked almost
frightened when Dolph ran back into the room and
cried :

"Who was that a-pickin' that banjer ?"

It was not often that Dolph showed such excite
ment, but he had good cause, and, when he saw
Chad standing, shamefaced and bashful, in the
middle of the floor, and Melissa joyously pointing
her finger at him, he caught up the banjo from the
bed and put it into the boy's hands. "Here, you
just play that tune agin!"

Chad shrank back, half distressed and half
happy, and only a hail outside from the first of the
coming guests saved him from utter confusion.
Once started, they came swiftly, and in half an
hour all were there. Each got a hearty welcome
from old Joel, who, with a wink and a laugh and
a nod to the old mother, gave a hearty squeeze to
some buxom girl, while the fire roared a heartier
welcome still. Then was there a dance indeed—
no soft swish of lace and muslin, but the active

5°

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

swing of linsey and simple homespun; no French
fiddler's bows and scrapings, no intricate lancers,
no languid waltz; but neat shuffling forward and
back, with every note of the music beat; floor-
thumping "cuttings of the pigeon's wing," and
jolly jigs, two by two, and a great "swinging of cor
ners," and "caging the bird," and "fust lady to the
right cheat an' swing"; no flirting from behind fans
and under stairways and little nooks, but honest,
open courtship — strong arms about healthy waists,
and a kiss taken now and then, with everybody to
see and nobody to care who saw. If a chair was
lacking, a pair of brawny knees made one chair
serve for two, but never, if you please, for two men.
Rude, rough, semi-barbarous, if you will, but sim
ple, natural, honest, sane, earthy — and of the earth
whence springs the oak and in time, maybe, the
flower of civilization.

At the first pause in the dance, old Joel called
loudly for Chad. The boy tried to slip out of
the door, but Dolph seized him and pulled him
to a chair in the corner and put the banjo in
his hands. Everybody looked on with curiosity
at first, and for a little while Chad suffered; but
when the dance turned attention from him, he
forgot himself again and made the old thing hum
with all the rousing tunes that had ever swept its
string. When he stopped at last, to wipe the per
spiration from his face, he noticed for the first time

51

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

the school-master, who was yet divided between the
church and the law, standing at the door — silent,
grave, disapproving. And he was not alone in his
condemnation; in many a cabin up and down the
river, stern talk was going on against the ungodly
"carryings on" under the Turner roof, and, far
from accepting them as proofs of a better birth
and broader social ideas, these Calvinists of the
hills set the merry-makers down as the special prey
of the devil, and the dance and the banjo as sly
plots of the same to draw their souls to hell.

Chad felt the master's look, and he did not be
gin playing again, but put the banjo down by his
chair and the dance came to an end. Once more
Chad saw the master look, this time at Sintha, who
was leaning against the wall with a sturdy youth
in a fringed hunting-shirt bending over her — his
elbow against a log directly over her shoulder.
Sintha saw the look, too, and she answered with a
little toss of her head, but when Caleb Hazel turned
to go out the door, Chad saw that the girl's eyes
followed him. A little later, Chad went out too,
and found the master at the corner of the fence and
looking at a low red star whose rich, peaceful light
came through a gap in the hills. Chad shyly drew
near him, hoping in some way to get a kindly word,
but the master was so absorbed that he did not see
or hear the boy and Chad, awed by the stern, sol
emn face, withdrew and, without a word to any-

52

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

body, climbed into the loft and went to bed. He
could hear every stroke on the floor below, every
call of the prompter, and the rude laughter and
banter, but he gave little heed to it all. For he
lay thinking of Caleb Hazel and listening again to
the stories he and the cattle-dealer had told him
about the wonderful settlements. "God's Country,"
the dealer always called it, and such it must be,
if what he and the master said was true. By and
by the steady beat of feet under him, the swift
notes of the banjo, the calls of the prompter and
the laughter fused, became inarticulate, distant —
ceased. And Chad, as he was wont to do, jour
neyed on to "God's Country" in his dreams.

S3

IV

THE COMING OF THE TIDB

WHILE the corn grew, school went on and,
like the corn, Chad's schooling put forth
leaves and bore fruit rapidly. The boy's mind was
as clear as his eye and, like a mountain-pool, gave
back every image that passed before it. Not a
word dropped from the master's lips that he failed
to hear and couldn't repeat, and, in a month, he
had put Dolph and Rube, who, big as they were,
had little more than learned the alphabet, to open
shame; and he won immunity with his fists from
gibe and insult from every boy within his inches
in school — including Tad Dillon, who came in
time to know that it was good to let the boy alone.
He worked like a little slave about the house, and,
like Jack, won his way into the hearts of old Joel
and his wife, and even of Dolph and Rube, in
spite of their soreness over Chad's having spelled
them both down before the whole school. As for
Tall Tom, he took as much pride as the school
master in the boy, and in town, at the grist-mill,
the cross-roads, or blacksmith shop, never failed
to tell the story of the dog and the boy, whenever

54

THE COMING OF THE TIDE

there was a soul to listen. And as for Melissa,
while she ruled him like a queen and Chad paid
sturdy and uncomplaining homage, she would have
scratched out the eyes of one of her own brothers
had he dared to lay a finger on the boy. For Chad
had God's own gift — to win love from all but ene
mies and nothing but respect and fear from them.
Every morning, soon after daybreak, he stalked
ahead of the little girl to school, with Dolph and
Rube lounging along behind, and, an hour before
sunset, stalked back in the same way home again.
When not at school, the two fished and played to
gether — inseparable.

Corn was ripe now, and school closed and Chad
went with the men into the fields and did his part,
stripping the gray blades from the yellow stalks,
binding them into sheaves, stowing them away
under the low roof of the big barn, or stacking
them tent-like in the fields — leaving each ear
perched like a big roosting bird on each lone stalk.
And when the autumn came, there were husking
parties and dances and much merriment; and, night
after night, Chad saw Sintha and the school-master
in front of the fire — "settin' up" — close together
with their arms about each other's necks and whis
pering. And there were quilting parties and house-
warmings and house-raisings — one that was of
great importance to Caleb Hazel and to Chad.
For, one morning, Sintha disappeared and came

55

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

back with the tall young hunter in the deerskin leg
gings — blushing furiously — a bride. At once old
Joel gave them some cleared land at the head of
a creek; the neighbors came in to build them a
cabin, and among them all, none worked harder
than the school-master; and no one but Chad
guessed how sorely hit he was.

Meanwhile, the woods high and low were ring
ing with the mellow echoes of axes, and the thun
dering crash of big trees along the mountain-side;
for already the hillsmen were felling trees while
the sap was in the roots, so that they could lie all
winter, dry better and float better in the spring,
when the rafts were taken down the river to the lit
tle capital in the Bluegrass. And Caleb Hazel said
that he would go down on a raft in the spring and
perhaps Chad could go with him — who knew ?
For the school-master had now made up his mind
finally — he would go out into the world and make
his way out there; and nobody but Chad noticed
that his decision came only after, and only a little
while after, the house-raising at the head of the
creek.

When winter came, school opened again, and
on Saturdays and Sundays and cold snowy nights,
Chad and the school-master — for he too lived at
the Turners' now — sat before the fire in the
kitchen, and the school-master read to him from
"Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," which he had

56

^SdbdVCD

THE COMING OF THE TIDE

brought from the Bluegrass, and from the Bible
which had been his own since he was a child.
And the boy drank in the tales until he was drunk
with them and learned the conscious scorn of a lie,
the conscious love of truth and pride in courage,
and the conscious reverence for women that make
the essence of chivalry as distinguished from the
unthinking code of brave, simple people. He
adopted the master's dignified phraseology as best
he could; he watched him, as the master stood be
fore the fire with his hands under his coat-tails,
his chin raised, and his eyes dreamily upward, and
Tall Tom caught the boy in just this attitude one
day and made fun of him before all the others.
He tried some high-sounding phrases on Melissa,
and Melissa told him he must be crazy. Once,
even, he tried to kiss her hand gallantly and she
slapped his face. Undaunted, he made a lance
of white ash, threaded some loose yarn into Me
lissa's colors, as he told himself, sneaked into
the barn, where Beelzebub was tied, got on the
sheep's back and, as the old ram sprang forward,
couched his lance at the trough and shattered it
with a thrill that left him trembling for half an
hour. It was too good to give up that secret
joust and he made another lance and essayed an
other tournament, but this time Beelzebub butted
the door open and sprang with a loud ba-a-a into
the yard and charged for the gate — in full view

57

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

of old Joel, the three brothers, and the school
master, who were standing in the road. Instinc
tively, Chad swung on in spite of the roar of
laughter and astonishment that greeted him and,
as Tom banged the gate, the ram swerved and
Chad shot off sidewise as from a catapult and
dropped, a most unheroic little knight, in the mire.
That ended Chad's chivalry in the hills, for in the
roars of laughter that greeted him, Chad recog
nized Caleb Hazel's as the loudest. If he laughed,
chivalry could never thrive there, and Chad gave
it up; but the seeds were sown.

The winter passed, and what a time Chad and
Jack had, snaking logs out of the mountains with
two, four, six — yes, even eight yoke of oxen, when
the log was the heart of a monarch oak or poplar
— snaking them to the chute; watching them roll
and whirl and leap like jack-straws from end to
end down the steep incline and, with one last shoot
in the air, roll, shaking, quivering, into a mighty
heap on the bank of Kingdom Come. And then
the "rafting" of those logs — dragging them into
the pool of the creek, lashing them together with
saplings driven to the logs with wooden pins in
auger-holes — wading about, meanwhile, waist deep
in the cold water: and the final lashing of the raft
to a near-by tree with a grape-vine cable — t© await
the coming of a "tide."

58

THE COMING OF THE TIDE

Would that tide never come ? It seemed not.
The spring ploughing was over, the corn planted;
there had been rain after rain, but gentle rains
only. There had been prayers for rain:

"O Lord," said the circuit-rider, "we do not
presume to dictate to Thee, but we need rain, an*
need it mighty bad. We do not presume to dic
tate, but, if it pleases Thee, send us, not a gentle
sizzle-sozzle, but a sod-soaker, O Lord, a gully-
washer. Give us a tide, O Lord!" Sunrise
and sunset, old Joel turned his eye to the east
and the west and shook his head. Tall Tom did
the same, and Dolph and Rube studied the heav
ens for a sign. The school-master grew visibly
impatient and Chad was in a fever of restless ex
pectancy. The old mother had made him a suit of
clothes — mountain-clothes- — for the trip. Old Joel
gave him a five-dollar bill for his winter's work.
Even Jack seemed to know that something unusual
was on hand and hung closer about the house, for
fear he might be left behind.

Softly at last, one night, came the patter of lit
tle feet on the roof and passed — came again and
paused; and then there was a rush and a steady
roar that wakened Chad and thrilled him as he
lay listening. It did not last long, but the river
was muddy enough and high enough for the Tur
ner brothers to float the raft slowly out from the
mouth of Kingdom Come and down in front of the

59

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

house, where it was anchored to a huge sycamore
in plain sight. At noon the clouds gathered and
old Joel gave up his trip to town.

"Hit'll begin in about an hour, boys," he said,
and in an hour it did begin. There was to be no
doubt about this flood. At dusk, the river had
risen two feet and the raft was pulling at its cable
like an awakening sea-monster. Meanwhile, the
mother had cooked a great pone of corn-bread,
three feet in diameter, and had ground coffee and
got sides of bacon ready. All night it poured and
the dawn came clear, only to darken into gray
again. But the river — the river! The roar of it
filled the woods. The frothing hem of it swished
through the tops of the trees and through the
underbrush, high on the mountain-side. Arched
slightly in the middle, for the river was still ris
ing, it leaped and surged, tossing tawny mane and
fleck and foam as it thundered along — a mad,
molten mass of yellow struck into gold by the
light of the sun. And there the raft, no longer
the awkward monster it was the day before, floated
like a lily-pad, straining at the cable as lightly as
a greyhound leaping against its leash.

The neighbors were gathered to watch the de
parture — old Jerry Budd, blacksmith and "yarb
doctor," and his folks; the Cultons and Middle-
tons, and even the Dillons — little Tad and Whiz-
zer — and all. And a bright picture of Arcadia

60

THE COMING OF THE TIDE

the simple folk made, the men in homespun and
the women with their brilliant shawls, as they
stood on the bank laughing, calling to one an
other, and jesting like children. All were aboard
now and there was no kissing nor shaking hands
in the farewell. The good old mother stood on
the bank, with Melissa holding to her apron and
looking at Chad gravely.

"Take good keer o' yo'self, Chad," she said
kindly, and then she looked down at the little girl.
"He's a-comin' back, honey — Chad's a-comin*
back." And Chad nodded brightly, but Melissa
drew her apron across her mouth, dropped her
eyes to the old rifle in the boy's lap, and did not
smile.

All were aboard now — Dolph and Rube, old
Squire Middleton, and the school-master, all ex
cept Tall Tom, who stood by the tree to unwind
the cable.

"Hold on!" shouted the Squire.

A raft shot suddenly around the bend above
them and swept past with the Dillon brothers,
Jake and Jerry, nephews of old Tad Dillon, at
bow and stern — passed with a sullen wave from
Jerry and a good-natured smile from stupid Jake.

"All right," Tom shouted, and he unwound the
great brown pliant vine from the sycamore and
leaped aboard. Just then there was a mad howl
behind the house and a gray streak of light

61

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

flashed over the bank and Jack, with a wisp of
rope around his neck, sprang through the air from
a rock ten feet high and landed lightly on the last
log as the raft shot forward. Chad gulped once
and his heart leaped with joy, for he had agreed
to leave Jack with old Joel, and old Joel had tied
the dog in the barn.

"Hi there!" shouted the old hunter. "Throw
that dawg off, Chad — throw him off."

But Chad shook his head and smiled.

"He won't go back," he shouted, and, indeed,
there was Jack squatted on his haunches close by
his little master and looking gravely back as
though he were looking a last good-by.

"Hi!" shouted old Joel again. "How am I
goin' to git along without that dawg ? Throw
him off, boy — throw him off, I tell ye!" Chad
seized the dog by the shoulders, but Jack braced
himself and, like a child, looked up in his master's
face. Chad let go and shook his head.

A frantic yell from Tall Tom at the bow oar
drew every eye to him. The current was stronger
than anyone guessed and the raft was being swept
by an eddy straight for the point of the opposite
shore where there was a sharp turn in the river.

"Watch out thar," shouted old Joel, "you're
goin' to 'bow'!" Dolph and Rube were slashing
the stern oar forward and back through the swift
water, but straight the huge craft made for that

62

THE COMING OF THE TIDE

deadly point. Every man had hold of an oar and
was tussling in silence for life. Every man on
shore was yelling directions and warning, while
the women shrank back with frightened faces.
Chad scarcely knew what the matter was, but he
gripped his rifle and squeezed Jack closer to him.
He heard Tom roar a last warning as the craft
struck) quivered a moment, and the stern swept
around. The craft had "bowed."

''Watch out — jump, boys, jump! Watch when
she humps! Watch yo' legs!" These were the
cries from the shore, and still Chad did not under
stand. He saw Tom leap from the bow, and, as
the stern swung to the other shore, Dolph, too,
leaped. Then the stern struck. The raft humped
in the middle like a bucking horse — the logs ground
savagely together. Chad heard a cry of pain from
Jack and saw the dog fly up in the air and drop in
the water. He and his gun had gone up, too, but
he came back on the raft with one leg in between
two logs and he drew it up in time to keep the
limb from being smashed to a pulp as the logs
crashed together again, but not quickly enough to
save the foot from a painful squeeze. Then he
saw Tom and Dolph leap back again, the raft
whirled on and steadied in its course, and behind
him he saw Jack swimming feebly for the shore
— fighting the waves for his life, for the dog was
hurt. Twice he turned his eyes despairingly

63

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COMB,

toward Chad, and the boy would have leaped in
the water to save him if Tom had not caught him
by the arm.

"Tell him to git to shore," he said quickly, and
Chad motioned, when Jack looked again, and the
dog obediently made for land. Old Joel was call
ing tenderly:

"Come on, Jack; come on, ole feller!"

Chad watched with a thumping heart. Once
Jack went under, but gave no sound. Again he
disappeared, and when he came up he gave a cry
for help, but when he heard Chad's answering cry
ihe fought on stroke by stroke until Chad saw old
Joel reach out from the bushes and pull him in.
And Chad could see that one of his hind legs hung
ilimp. Then the raft swung around the curve out
•of sight.

Behind, the whole crowd rushed down to the
water's edge. Jack tried to get away from old
Joel and scramble after Chad on his broken leg,
ibut old Joel held him, soothing him, and carried
'him back to the house, where the old "yarb doc
tor" put splints on the leg and bound it up tightly,
just as though it had been the leg of a child. Me
lissa was crying and the old man put his hand on
Jher head.

"He'll be all right, honey. That leg'll be as
•good as the other one in two or three weeks. It's
all right, little gal."

64

THE COMING OF THE TIDE

Melissa stopped weeping with a sudden gulp.
But when Jack was lying in the kitchen by the fire
alone, she slipped in and put her arm around the
dog's head, and, when Jack began to lick her face,
she bent her own head down and sobbed.

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

the way to God's Country at last!
Already Chad had schooled himself for the
parting with Jack, and but for this he must —
little man that he was — have burst into tears. As
it was, the lump in his throat stayed there a long
while, but it passed in the excitement of that mad
race down the river. The ol/4 Squii/^ had never
known such a tide.

"Boys," he said, gleefully, f we're goin* to make
a record on this trip — you jus' see if we don't.
That is, if we ever git thar alive."

All the time the old man stood in die middle of
the raft yelling orders. Ahead was the Dillon raft,
and the twin brothers — the giants, one mild, the
other sour-faced — were gesticulating angrily at
each other from bow and stern. As usual, they
were quarrelling. On the Turner raft, Dolph was
at the bow, the school-master at the stern, while
Rube — who was cook — and Chad, in spite of a
stinging pain in one foot, built an oven of stones,
where coffee could be boiled and bacon broiled,

66

OU1 OF THE WILDERNESS

and started a fire, for the air was chill on the river,
especially when they were running between the
hills and no sun could strike them.

When the fire blazed up, Chad sat by it watch
ing Tall Tom and the school-master at the stern
oar and Rube at the bow. When the turn was
sharp, how they lashed the huge white blades
through the yellow water — with the handle across
their broad chests, catching with their toes in the
little notches that had been chipped along the logs
and tossing the oars down and up with a mighty
swing that made the blades quiver and bend like
the tops of pliant saplings! Then, on a run, they
would rush back to start the stroke again, while
the old Squire yelled:

"Hit her up thar now — easy — easy! Now!
Hit her up! Hit her up — Now!"

Now they passed between upright, wooded,
gray mountain-sides, threaded with faint lines of
the coming green; now between gray walls of rock
streaked white with water-falls, and now past nar
row little valleys which were just beginning to
sprout with corn. At the mouth of the creeks they
saw other rafts making ready and, now and then, a
raft would shoot out in the river from some creek
ahead or behind them. In an hour, they struck a
smooth run of several hundred yards where the
men at the oars could sit still and rest, while the
raft shot lightly forward in the middle of the

67

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

stream; and down the river they could see the big
Dillons making the next sharp turn and, even that
far away, they could hear Jerry yelling and swear
ing at his patient brother.

"Some o' these days," said the old Squire, "that
fool Jake's a-goin' to pick up somethin' an' knock
that mean Jerry's head off. I wonder he hain't
done it afore. Hit's funny how brothers can hate
when they do git to hatin'."

That night, they tied up at Jackson — to be fa
mous long after the war as the seat of a bitter
mountain-feud. At noon, the next day, they struck
"the Nahrrers" (Narrows), where the river ran
like a torrent between high steep walls of rock, and
where the men stood to the oars watchfully and the
old Squire stood upright, watching every move
ment of the raft; for "bowing" there would have
meant destruction to the raft and the death of
them all. That night they were in Beattyville,
whence they floated next day, along lower hills and,
now and then, past a broad valley. Once Chad
looked at the school-master — he wondered if they
were approaching the Bluegrass — but Caleb Hazei
smiled and shook his head. And had Chad waited
another half hour, he would not have asked the
question, even with his eyes, for they swept be
tween high cliffs again — higher than he had yet
seen.

That night they ran from dark to dawn, for
68

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

the river was broader and a brilliant moon was
high; and, all night, Chad could hear the swish of
the oars, as they floated in mysterious silence past
the trees and the hills and the moonlit cliffs, and he
lay on his back, looking up at the moon and the
stars, and thinking about the land to which he was
going and of Jack back in the land he had left;
and of little Melissa. She had behaved very
strangely during the last few days before the boy
had left. She had not been sharp with him, even
in play. She had been very quiet — indeed, she
scarcely spoke a word to him, but she did lit
tle things for him that she had never done before,
and she was unusually kind to Jack. Once, Chad
found her crying behind the barn, and then she was
very sharp with him, and told him to go away and
cried more than ever. Her little face looked very
white, as she stood on the bank, and, somehow,
Chad saw it all that night in the river and among
the trees and up among the stars, but he little knew
what it all meant to him or to her. He thought of
the Turners back at home, and he could see them
sitting around the big fire — Joel with his pipe, the
old mother spinning flax, Jack asleep on the hearth,
and Melissa's big solemn eyes shining from the
dark corner where she lay wide-awake in bed and,
when he went to sleep, her eyes followed him in his
dreams.

When he awoke, the day was just glimmering

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

over the hills, and the chill air made him shiver,
as he built up the fire and began to get breakfast
ready. At noon, that day, though the cliffs were
still high, the raft swung out into a broader cur
rent, where the water ran smoothly and, once, the
hills parted and, looking past a log-cabin on the
bank of the river, Chad saw a stone house — relic
of pioneer days — and, farther out, through a gap
in the hills, a huge house with great pillars around
it and, on the hill-side, many sheep and fat cattle
and a great barn. There dwelt one of the lords
of the Bluegrass land, and again Chad looked to
the school-master and, this time, the school-master
smiled and nodded as though to say:

"We're getting close now, Chad." So Chad
rose to his feet thrilled, and watched the scene
until the hills shut it off again. One more night
and one more dawn, and, before the sun rose, the
hills had grown smaller and smaller and the
glimpses between them more frequent and, at last,
far down the river, Chad saw a column of smoke
and all the men on the raft took off their hats and
shouted. The end of the trip was near, for that
black column meant the capital!

Chad trembled on his feet and his heart rose
into his throat, while Caleb Hazel seemed hardly
less moved. His hat was off and he stood motion
less, with his face uplifted, and his grave eyes fast
ened on that dark column as though it rose from

70

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

the pillar of fire that was leading him to some
promised land.

As they rounded the next curve, some monster
swept out of the low hills on the right, with a
shriek that startled the boy almost into terror and,
with a mighty puffing and rumbling, shot out of
sight again. The school-master shouted to Chad,
and the Turner brothers grinned at him delight
edly:

"Steam-cars!" they cried, and Chad nodded
back gravely, trying to hold in his wonder.

Sweeping around the next curve, another mon
ster hove in sight with the same puffing and a long
"h-o-o-ot!" A monster on the river and moving
up stream steadily, with no oar and no man in
sight, and the Turners and the school-master
shouted again. Chad's eyes grew big with wonder
and he ran forward to see the rickety little steam
boat approach and, with wide eyes, devoured it, as
it wheezed and labored up-stream past them —
watched the thundering stern-wheel threshing the
water into a wake of foam far behind it and flash
ing its blades, water-dripping in the sun — watched
it till it puffed and wheezed and labored on out of
sight. Great Heavens! to think that he — Chad —
was seeing all that!

About the next bend, more but thinner columns
of smoke were visible. Soon the very hills over the
capital could be seen, with little green wheat-fields

7i

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

dotting them and, as the raft drew a little closer,
Chad could see houses on the hills — more strange
houses of wood and stone, and porches, and queer
towers on them from which glistened shining
points.

"What's them?" he asked.

"Lightnin'-rods," said Tom, and Chad under
stood, for the school-master had told him about
them back in the mountains. Was there anything
that Caleb Hazel had not told him ? The haze
over the town was now visible, and soon they swept
past tall chimneys puffing out smoke, great ware
houses covered on the outside with weather-brown
tin, and, straight ahead — Heavens, what a bridge!
— arching clear over the river and covered like a
house, from which people were looking down on
them as they swept under. There were the houses,
in two rows on the streets, jammed up against each
other and without any yards. And people! Where
had so many people come from ? Close to the river
and beyond the bridge was another great mansion,
with tall pillars; about it was a green yard, as
smooth as a floor, and negroes and children were
standing on the outskirting stone wall and looking
down at them as they floated by. And another
great house still, and a big garden with little paths
running through it and more patches of that
strange green grass. Was that bluegrass ? It was,
but it didn't look blue and it didn't look like any

72

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

other grass Chad had ever seen. Below this bridge
was another bridge, but not so high, and, while
Chad looked, another black monster on wheels
went crashing over it.

Tom and the school-master were working the
raft slowly to the shore now, and, a little farther
down, Chad could see more rafts tied up — rafts,
rafts, nothing but rafts on the river, everywhere!
Up the bank a mighty buzzing was going on, amid
a cloud of dust, and little cars with logs on them
were shooting about amid the gleamings of many
saws, and, now and then, a log would leap from
the river and start up toward that dust-cloud with
two glistening iron teeth sunk in one end and a
long iron chain stretching up along a groove built
of boards — and Heaven only knew what was pull
ing it up. On the bank was a stout, jolly-looking
man, whose red, kind face looked familiar to Chad,
as he ran down shouting a welcome to the Squire.
Then the raft slipped along another raft, Tom
sprang aboard it with the grape-vine cable, and
the school-master leaped aboard with another cable
from the stern.

"Why, boy," cried the stout man. "Where's
yo' dog?" Then Chad recognized him, for he
was none other than the cattle-dealer who had given
him Jack.

"I left him at home."

"Is he all right?"

73

"Yes— I reckon."

"Then I'd like to have him back again."

Chad smiled and shook his head.

"Not much."

"Well, he's the best sheep-dog on earth."

The raft slowed up, creaking — slower — strain
ing and creaking, and stopped. The trip was over,
and the Squire had made his "record," for the red-
faced man whistled incredulously when the old man
told him what day he had left Kingdom Come.

An hour later the big Dillon twins hove in sight,
just as the Turner party was climbing the sawdust
hill into the town, where Dolph and Rube were for
taking the middle of the street like other moun
taineers, who were marching thus ahead of them,
single file, but Tom and the school-master laughed
at them and drew them over to the sidewalk.
Bricks and stones laid down for people to walk on
— how wonderful! And all the houses were of
brick or were weather-boarded — all built together,
wall against wall. And the stores with the big
glass windows all filled with wonderful things!
Then a pair of swinging green shutters through
which, while Chad and the school-master waited
outside, Tom insisted on taking Dolph and Rube
and giving them their first drink of Bluegrass whis
key — red liquor, as the hill-men call it. A little
farther on, they all stopped still on a corner of the
street, while the school-master pointed out to Chad

74

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

and Dolph and Rube the Capitol — a mighty struct
ure of massive stone, with majestic stone columns*
where people went to the Legislature. How they
looked with wondering eyes at the great flag float
ing lazily over it, and at the wonderful fountain
tossing water in the air, and with the water three
white balls which leaped and danced in the jet of
shining spray and never flew away from it. How
did they stay there ? The school-master laughed
— Chad had asked him a question at last that he
couldn't answer. And the tall spiked iron fence
that ran all the way around the yard, which was
full of trees — how wonderful that was, too! As
they stood looking, law-makers and visitors poured
out through the doors — a brave array — some of
them in tight trousers, high hats, and blue coats with
brass buttons, and, as they passed, Caleb Hazef
reverently whispered the names of those he knew
— distinguished lawyers, statesmen, and Mexican
veterans: witty Tom Marshall; Roger Hanson,
bulky, brilliant; stately Preston, eagle-eyed Buck-
ner, and Breckenridge, the magnificent, forensic in
bearing. Chad was thrilled.

A little farther on, they turned to the left, and
the school-master pointed out the Governor's man
sion, and there, close by, was a high gray wall — a
wall as high as a house, with a wooden box taller
than a man on each corner, and, inside, another
big gray building in which, visible above the walls,

75

were grated windows — the penitentiary! Every
mountaineer has heard that word, and another —
the "Legislator'."

Chad shivered as he looked, for he could recall
that sometimes down in the mountains a man would
disappear for years and turn up again at home,
whitened by confinement; and, during his absence,
when anyone asked about him, the answer was —
"penitentiary." He wondered what those boxes
on the walls were for, and he was about to ask, when
a guard stepped from one of them with a musket
and started to patrol the wall, and he had no need
to ask. Tom wanted to go up on the hill and look
at the Armory and the graveyard, but the school
master said they did not have time, and, on the
moment, the air was startled with whistles far and
near — six o'clock! At once Caleb Hazel led the
way to supper in the boarding-house, where a kind-
faced old lady spoke to Chad in a motherly way,
and where the boy saw his first hot biscuit and was
almost afraid to eat anything at the table for fear
he might do something wrong. For the first time
in his life, too, he slept on a mattress without any
feather-bed, and Chad lay wondering, but unsatis
fied still. Not yet had he been out of sight of the
hills, but the master had told him that they would
see the Bluegrass next day, when they were to start
back to the mountains by train as far as Lexington.
And Chad went to sleep, dreaming his old dream
still.

76

VI

LOST AT THE CAPITAL

TT had been arranged by the school-master that
they should all meet at the railway station to
go home, next day at noon, and, as the Turner
boys had to help the Squire with the logs at the
river, and the school-master had to attend to some
business of his own, Chad roamed all morning
around the town. So engrossed was he with the
people and the sights and sounds of the little
village that he came to himself with a start and
trotted back to the boarding-house for fear that he
might not be able to find the station alone. The
old lady was standing in the sunshine at the gate.

Chad panted— "Where's ?"

"The/ re gone."

"Gone!" echoed Chad, with a sinking heart.

"Yes, they've been gone — " But Chad did not
wait to listen; he whirled into the hall-way, caught
up his rifle, and, forgetting his injured foot, fled
at full speed down the street. He turned the cor
ner, but could not see the station, and he ran on
about another corner and still another, and, just
when he was about to burst into tears, he saw the

77

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

low roof that he was looking for, and hot, panting,
and tired, he rushed to it, hardly able to speak.

"Has that enjine gone ?" he asked breathlessly.
The man who was whirling trunks on their corners
into the baggage-room did not answer. Chad's
eyes flashed and he caught the man by the coat-tail.

"'Has that enjine gone?" he cried.

The man looked over his shoulder.

"Leggo my coat, you little devil. Yes, that en-
jine's gone," he added, mimicking. Then he saw
the boy's unhappy face and he dropped the trunk
and turned to him.

"What's the matter?" he asked, kindly.

Chad had turned away with a sob.

" They've leF me — they've leP me," he said,
and then, controlling himself:

"Is thar another goin' ?"

"Not till to-morrow mornin'."

Another sob came, and Chad turned away — he
did not want anybody to see him cry. And this
was no time for crying, for Chad's prayer back at
the grave under the poplar flashed suddenly back
to him.

"I got to ack like a man now." And, sobered
at once, he walked on up the hill — thinking. He
could not know that the school-master was back in
the town, looking for him. If he waited until the
next morning, the Turners would probably have
gone on; whereas, if he started out now on foot,

78

and walked all night, he might catch them before
they left Lexington next morning. And if he
missed the Squire and the Turner boys, he could
certainly find the school-master there. And if not,
he could go on to the mountains alone. Or he
might stay in the " settlemints " — what had he come
for ? He might — he would — oh, he'd get along
somehow, he said to himself, wagging his head-
he always had and he always would. He could al
ways go back to the mountains. If he only had
Jack — if he only had Jack! Nothing would make
any difference then, and he would never be lonely,
if he only had Jack. But, cheered with his deter
mination, he rubbed the tears from his eyes with
his coat-sleeve and climbed the long hill. There
was the Armory, which, years later, was to harbor
Union troops in the great war, and beyond it was
the little city of the dead that sits on top of the
hill far above the shining river. At the great iron
gates he stopped a moment, peering through. He
saw a wilderness of white slabs and, not until he
made his way across the thick green turf and
spelled out the names carved on them, could he
make out what they were for. How he wondered
when he saw the innumerable green mounds, for
he hardly knew there were as many people in the
world living as he saw there must be in that place,
dead. But he had no time to spare and he turned
quickly back to the pike — saddened — for his heart

79

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

went back, as his faithful heart was always doing,
to the lonely graves under the big poplar back in
the mountains.

When he reached the top of the slope, he saw a
rolling country of low hills stretching out before
him, greening with spring; with far stretches of
thick grass and many woodlands under a long, low
sky, and he wondered if this was the Bluegrass.
But he "reckoned" not — not yet. And yet he
looked in wonder at the green slopes, and the
woods, and the flashing creek, and nowhere in
front of him — wonder of all — could he see a
mountain. It was as Caleb Hazel had told him,
only Chad was not looking for any such mysterious
joy as thrilled his sensitive soul. There had been
a light sprinkle of snow — such a fall as may come
even in early April — but the noon sun had let the
wheat-fields and the pastures blossom through it,
and had swept it from the gray moist pike until
now there were patches of white only in gully and
along north hill-sides under little groups of pines
and in the woods, where the sunlight could not
reach; and Chad trudged sturdily on in spite of
his heavy rifle and his lame foot, keenly alive to
the new sights and sounds and smells of the new

O

world — on until the shadows lengthened and the
air chilled again; on, until the sun began to sink
close to the far-away haze of the horizon. Never
had the horizon looked so far away. His foot

80

LOST AT THE CAPITAL

began to hurt, and on the top of a hill he had
to stop and sit down for a while in the road, the
pain was so keen. The sun was setting now in
a glory of gold, rose, pink, and crimson. Over
him, the still clouds caught the divine light which
swept swiftly through the heavens until the little
pink clouds over the east, too, turned golden pink
and the whole heavens were suffused with green
and gold. In the west, cloud was piled on cloud
like vast cathedrals that must have been built for
worship on the way straight to the very throne
of God. And Chad sat thrilled, as he had been
at the sunrise on the mountains the morning after
he ran away. There was no storm, but the same
loneliness came to him now and he wondered what
he should do. He could not get much farther that
night — his foot hurt too badly. He looked up —
the clouds had turned to ashes and the air was
growing chill — and he got to his feet and started
on. At the bottom of the hill and down a little
creek he saw a light and he turned toward it. The
house was small, and he could hear the crying of
a child inside and could see a tall man cutting wood,
so he stopped at the bars and shouted:

"Hello!"

The man stopped his axe in mid-air and turned.
A woman, with a baby in her arms, appeared in
the light of the door with children crowding about
her.

8l

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Hello!" answered the man.

"I want to git to stay all night." The man hes
itated.

"We don't keep people all night."

"Not keep people all night," thought Chad with
wonder.

"Oh, I reckon you will," he said. Was there
anybody in the world who wouldn't take in a
stranger for the night ? From the doorway the
woman saw that it was a boy who was asking shel
ter and the trust in his voice appealed vaguely to
her.

"Come in!" she called, in a patient, whining
tone. "You can stay, I reckon."

But Chad changed his mind suddenly. If they
were in doubt about wanting him — he was in no
doubt as to what he would do.

"No, I reckon I'd better git on," he said sturdily,
and he turned and limped back up the hill to the
road — still wondering, and he remembered that, in
the mountains, when people wanted to stay all
night, they usually stopped before sundown. Trav
elling after dark was suspicious in the mountains,
and perhaps it was in this land, too. So, with this
thought, he had half a mind to go back and ex
plain, but he pushed on. Half a mile farther, his
foot was so bad that he stopped with a cry of pain
in the road and, seeing a barn close by, he climbed
the fence and into the loft and burrowed himself

82

LOST AT THE CAPITAL

under the hay. From under the shed he could see
the stars rising. It was very still and very lonely
and he was hungry — hungrier and lonelier than he
had ever been in his life, and a sob of helplessness
rose to his lips — if he only had Jack — but he held
it back.

" I got to ack like a man now." And, saying this
over and over to himself, he went to sleep.

VII

A FRIEND ON THE ROAD

13 AIN fell that night — gentle rain and warm,
for the south wind rose at midnight. At
four o'clock a shower made the shingles over Chad
rattle sharply, but without wakening the lad, and
then the rain ceased; and when Chad climbed
stiffly from his loft — the world was drenched and
still, and the dawn was warm, for spring had come
that morning, and Chad trudged along the road
— unchilled. Every now and then he had to stop
to rest his foot. Now and then he would see peo
ple getting breakfast ready in the farm-houses that
he passed, and, though his little belly was drawn
with pain, he would not stop and ask for something
to eat — for he did not want to risk another rebuff.
The sun rose and the light leaped from every wet
blade of grass and bursting leaf to meet it — leaped
as though flashing back gladness that the spring
was come. For a little while Chad forgot his hun
ger and forgot his foot — like the leaf and grass-
blade his stout heart answered with gladness, too,
and he trudged on.

84

A FRIEND ON THE ROAD

Meanwhile, far behind him, an old carriage
rolled out of a big yard and started toward him
and toward Lexington. In the driver's seat was
an old gray-haired, gray-bearded negro with
knotty hands and a kindly face; while, on the
oval-shaped seat behind the lumbering old vehicle,
sat a little darky with his bare legs dangling down.
In the carriage sat a man who might have been a
stout squire straight from merry England, except
that there was a little tilt to the brim of his slouch
hat that one never sees except on the head of a
Southerner, and in his strong, but easy, good-nat
ured mouth was a pipe of corn-cob with a long
cane stem. The horses that drew him were a hand
some pair of half thorough-breds, and the old
driver, with his eyes half closed, looked as though,
even that early in the morning, he were dozing.

An hour later, the pike ran through an old
wooden-covered bridge, to one side of which a road
led down to the water, and the old negro turned
the carriage to the creek to let his horses drink.
The carriage stood still in the middle of the stream
and presently the old driver turned his head:

"Mars Cal!" he called in a low voice. The
Major raised his head. The old negro was point
ing with his whip ahead and the Major saw some
thing sitting on the stone fence, some twenty yards
beyond, which stirred him sharply from his mood
of contemplation.

85

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Shades of Dan'l Boone!" he said, softly. It
was a miniature pioneer — the little still figure
watching him solemnly and silently. Across the
boy's lap lay a long rifle — the Major could see
that it had a flintlock — and on his tangled hair was
a coonskin cap — the scalp above his steady dark
eyes and the tail hanging down the lad's neck. And
on his feet were — moccasins ! The carriage moved
out of the stream and the old driver got down to
hook the check-reins over the shining bit of metal
that curved back over the little saddles to which the
boy's eyes had swiftly strayed. Then they came
back to the Major.

"Howdye!" said Chad.

"Good-mornin', little man," said the Major
pleasantly, and Chad knew straightway that he had
found a friend. But there was silence. Chad
scanned the horses and the strange vehicle and the
old driver and the little pickaninny who, hearing
the boy's voice, had stood up on his seat and was
grinning over one of the hind wheels, and then his
eyes rested on the Major with a simple confidence
and unconscious appeal that touched the Major at
once.

"Are you goin' my way ?" The Major's nature
was too mellow and easy-going to pay any atten
tion to final g's. Chad lifted his old gun and
pointed up the road.

"I'm a-goin' thataway."
86

A FRIEND ON THE ROAD

"Well, don't you want to ride?"

"Yes," he said, simply.

"Climb right in, my boy."

So Chad climbed in, and, holding the old rifle
upright between his knees, he looked straight for
ward, in silence, while the Major studied him with
a quiet smile.

"Where are you from, little man ?"

"I come from the mountains."

"The mountains ?" said the Major.

The Major had fished and hunted in the moun-
tians, and somewhere in that unknown region he
owned a kingdom of wild mountain-land, but he
knew as little about the people as he knew about
the Hottentots, and cared hardly more.

"What are you doin' up here ?"

"I'm goin' home," said Chad.

"How did you happen to come away ?"

"Oh, I been wantin' to see the settlemm/j."

"The settlera/rc/.f," echoed the Major, and then
he understood. He recalled having heard the
mountaineers call the Bluegrass region the "settle-
mints" before.

"I come down on a raft with Dolph and Tom
and Rube and the Squire and the school-teacher, an*
I got lost in Frankfort. They've gone on, I
reckon, an* I'm tryin' to ketch 'em."

"What will you do if you don't ?"

"Foller 'em," said Chad, sturdily.

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Does your father live down in the mountains ?"

"No," said Chad, shortly.

The Major looked at the lad gravely.

"Don't little boys down in the mountains ever
say 'sir' to their elders ?"

"No," said Chad. "No, sir," he added gravely,
and the Major broke into a pleased laugh — the
boy was quick as lightning.

"I ain't got no daddy. An' no mammy — I
ain't got — nothin'." It was said quite simply, as
though his purpose merely was not to sail under
false colors, and the Major's answer was quick and
•apologetic:

"Oh!" he said, and for a moment there was si
lence again. Chad watched the woods, the fields,
and the cattle, the strange grain growing about
him, and the birds and the trees. Not a thing es
caped his keen eye, and, now and then, he would
ask a question which the Major would answer with
some surprise and wonder. His artless ways
pleased the old fellow.

"You haven't told me your name."

"You hain't axed me."

"Well, I axe you now," laughed the Major, but
Chad saw nothing to laugh at.

"Chad," he said.

"Chad what?"

Now it had always been enough in the moun
tains, when anybody asked his name, for him to an-

A FRIEND ON THE ROAD

swer simply — Chad. He hesitated now and his
brow wrinkled as though he were thinking hard.

"I don't know," said Chad.

"What ? Don't know your own name ?" The
boy looked up into the Major's face with eyes that
were so frank and unashamed and at the same time
so vaguely troubled that the Major was abashed.

"Of course not," he said kindly, as though it
were the most natural thing in the world that a boy
should not know his own name. Presently the Ma
jor said, reflectively:

"Chadwick."

"Chad," corrected the boy.

" Yes, I know"; and the Major went on thinking
that Chadwick happened to be an ancestral name
in his own family.

Chad's brow was still wrinkled — he was trying
to think what old Nathan Cherry used to call him.

"I reckon I hain't thought o' my name since I
left old Nathan," he said. Then he told briefly
about the old man, and lifting his lame foot sud
denly, he said: "Ouch!" The Major looked
around and Chad explained:

"I hurt my foot comin' down the river an' hit
got wuss walkin* so much." The Major noticed
then that the boy's face was pale, and that there
were dark hollows under his eyes, but it never
occurred to him that the lad was hungry, for, in
the Major's land, nobody ever went hungry for

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

long. But Chad was suffering now and he leaned
back in his seat and neither talked nor looked at
the passing fields. By and by, he spied a cross
roads store.

"I wonder if I can't git somethin* to eat in that
store."

The Major laughed: "You ain't gettin' hungry
so soon, are you ? You must have eaten breakfast
pretty early."

"I ain't had no breakfast — an' I didn't hev no
supper last night."

"What ?" shouted the Major.

Chad stated the fact with brave unconcern, but
his lip quivered slightly — he was weak.

"Well, I reckon we'll get something to eat there,
whether they've got anything or not."

And then Chad explained, telling the story of*
his walk from Frankfort. The Major was amazed
that anybody could have denied the boy food and
lodging.

"Who were they, Tom ?" he asked.

The old driver turned:

"They wus some po' white trash down on Cane
Creek, I reckon, suh. Must 'a' been." There was
a slight contempt in the negro's words that made
Chad think of hearing the Turners call the Dillons
white trash — though they never said "po' white
trash."

"Oh!" said the Major. So the carriage stopped,
go

A FRIEND ON THE ROAD

and when a man in a black slouch hat came out, the
Major called :

"Jim, here's a boy who ain't had anything to
eat for twenty-four hours. Get him a cup of coffee
right away, and I reckon you've got some cold ham
handy."

"Yes, indeed, Major," said Jim, and he yelled
to a negro girl who was standing on the porch of
his house behind the store.

Chad ate ravenously and the Major watched
him with genuine pleasure. When the boy was
through, he reached in his pocket and brought out
his old five-dollar bill, and the Major laughed
aloud and patted him on the head.

"You can't pay for anything while you are with
me, Chad."

The whole earth wore a smile when they started
out again. The swelling hills had stretched out
into gentler slopes. The sun was warm, the clouds
were still, and the air was almost drowsy. The
Major's eyes closed and everything lapsed into si
lence. That was a wonderful ride for Chad. It
was all true, just as the school-master had told him;
the big, beautiful houses he saw now and then up
avenues of blossoming locusts; the endless stone
fences, the whitewashed barns, the woodlands and
pastures; the meadow-larks flitting in the sunlight
and singing everywhere; fluting, chattering black
birds, and a strange new black bird with red wings,

91

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

at which Chad wondered very much, as he watched
it balancing itself against the wind and singing as
it poised. Everything seemed to sing in that won
derful land. And the seas of bluegrass stretching
away on every side, with the shadows of clouds
passing in rapid succession over them, like mystic
floating islands — and never a mountain in sight.
What a strange country it was.

"Maybe some of your friends are looking for
you in Frankfort," said the Major.

"No, sir, I reckon not," said Chad — for the man
at the station had told him that the men who had
asked about him were gone.

"All of them ?" asked the Major.

Of course, the man at the station could not tell
whether all of them had gone, and perhaps the
school-master had stayed behind — it was Caleb
Hazel if anybody.

"Well, now, I wonder," said Chad— "the
school-teacher might 'a' stayed."

Again the two lapsed into silence — Chad think
ing very hard. He might yet catch the school-mas
ter in Lexington, and he grew very cheerful at the
thought.

"You ain't told me yo' name," he said, presently.
The Major's lips smiled under the brim of his hat.

"You hain't axed me."

"Well, I axe you now." Chad, too, was smiling.

"Cal," said the Major.
92

A FRIEND ON THE ROAD

"Calwhat?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, yes, you do, now — you foolin* me" — the
boy lifted one finger at the Major.

"Buford— Calvin Buford."

"Buford — Buford — Buford," repeated the boy,
each time with his forehead wrinkled as though he
were trying to recall something.

"What is it, Chad?"

"Nothin'— nothinV

And then he looked up with bewildered face at
the Major and broke into the quavering voice of
an old man.

"Chad Buford, you little devil, come hyeh this
minute or I'll beat the life outen you!"

"What — what!" said the Major excitedly.
The boy's face was as honest as the sky above him.
"Well, that's funny — very funny."

"Well, that's it," said Chad, "that's what ole
Nathan used to call me. I reckon I hain't nuver
thought o' my name agin tell you axed me." The
Major looked at the lad keenly and then dropped
back in his seat ruminating.

Away back in 1778 a linchpin had slipped in a
wagon on the Wilderness Road and his grand
father's only brother, Chadwick Buford, had con
cluded to stop there for a while and hunt and come
on later — thus ran an old letter that the Major
had in his strong box at home — and that brother

93

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

had never turned up again and the supposition was
that he had been killed by Indians. Now it would
be strange if he had wandered up in the mountains
and settled there and if this boy were a descendant
of his. It would be very, very strange, and then
the Major almost laughed at the absurdity of the
idea. The name Buford was all over the State.
The boy had said, with amazing frankness and
without a particle of shame, that he was a waif —
a "woodscolt," he said, with paralyzing candor,
And so the Major dropped the matter out of his
mind, except in so far that it was a peculiar coin
cidence — again saying, half to himself;
"It certainly is very odd/'

VIII

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

A HEAD of them, it was Court Day in Lexing-
ton. From the town, as a centre, white
turnpikes radiated in every direction like the
strands of a spider's web. Along them, on the day
before, cattle^ sheep, and hogs had made their slow
way. Since dawn, that morning, the fine dust had
been rising under hoof and wheel on every one of
them, for Court Day is yet the great day of every
month throughout the Bluegrass. The crowd had
gone ahead of the Major and Chad. Only now
and then would a laggard buggy or carriage turn
into the pike from a pasture-road or locust-bor
dered avenue. Only men were occupants, for the
ladies rarely go to town on court days — and prob
ably none would go on that day. Trouble was ex
pected. An abolitionist, one Brutus Dean — not
from the North, but a Kentuckian, a slave-holder
and a gentleman — would probably start a paper
in Lexington to exploit his views in the heart of
the Bluegrass; and his quondam friends would
shatter his press and tear his office to pieces. So
the Major told Chad, and he pointed out some
"hands" at work in a field.

95

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"An', mark my words, some day there's goin'
to be the damnedest fight the world ever saw over
these very niggers. An' the day ain't so far away."

It was noon before they reached the big cem
etery on the edge of Lexington. Through a rift
in the trees the Major pointed out the grave of
Henry Clay, and told him about the big monu
ment that was to be reared above his remains. The
grave of Henry Clay! Chad knew all about him.
He had heard Caleb Hazel read the great man's
speeches aloud by the hour — had heard him inton
ing them to himself as he walked the woods to and
fro from school. Would wonders never cease ?
There seemed to be no end to the houses and
streets and people in this big town, and Chad won
dered why everybody turned to look at him and
smiled, and, later in the day, he came near getting
into a fight with another boy who seemed to be
making fun of him to his companions. He won
dered at that, too, until it suddenly struck him
that he saw nobody else carrying a rifle and wear
ing a coonskin cap — perhaps it was his cap and his
gun. The Major was amused and pleased, and he
took a certain pride in the boy's calm indifference
to the attention he was drawing to himself. And
he enjoyed the little mystery which he and his
queer little companion seemed to create as they
drove through the streets.

On one corner was a great hemp factory.

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

Through the windows Chad could see negroes,
dusty as millers, bustling about, singing as they
worked. Before the door were two men — one on
horseback. The Major drew up a moment.

" How are you, John ? Howdye, Dick ?" Both
men answered heartily, and both looked at Chad
— who looked intently at them — the graceful,
powerful man on foot and the slender, wiry man
with wonderful dark eyes on horseback.

"Pioneering, Major?" asked John Morgan.

"This is a namesake of mine from the moun
tains. He's come up to see the settlements."

Richard Hunt turned on his horse. "How do
you like 'em ?"

"Never seed nothin' like 'em in my life," said
Chad, gravely. Morgan laughed and Richard
Hunt rode on with them down the street.

"Was that Captin Morgan ?" asked Chad.

"Yes," said the Major. "Have you heard of
him before ?"

"Yes, sir. A feller on the road tol' me, if I
was lookin' fer somethin' to do hyeh in Lexington
to go to Captin Morgan."

The Major laughed: "That's what everybody
does."

At once, the Major took the boy to an old
inn and gave him a hearty meal; and while the
Major attended to some business, Chad roamed
the streets.

97

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Don't get into trouble, my boy," said the
Major, "an5 come back here an hour or two by
sun."

Naturally, the lad drifted where the crowd was
thickest — to Cheapside. Cheapside — at once the
market-place and the forum of the Bluegrass from
pioneer days to the present hour — the platform
that knew Clay, Crittenden, Marshall, Brecken-
ridge, as it knows the lesser men of to-day, who
resemble those giants of old as the woodlands of
the Bluegrass to-day resemble the primeval forests
from which they sprang.

Cheapside was thronged that morning with cat
tle, sheep, hogs, horses, farmers, aristocrats, ne
groes, poor whites. The air was a babel of cries
from auctioneers — head, shoulders, and waistband
above the crowd — and the cries of animals that
were changing owners that day — one of which
might now and then be a human being. The Ma
jor was busy, and Chad wandered w^here he pleased
— keeping a sharp lookout everywhere for the
school-master, but though he asked right and left
he could find nobody, to his great wonder, who
knew even the master's name. In the middle of the
afternoon the country people began to leave town
and Cheapside was cleared, but, as Chad walked
past the old inn, he saw a crowd gathered within
and about the wide doors of a livery-stable, and in
a circle outside that lapped half the street. The

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

auctioneer was in plain sight above the heads of the
crowd, and the horses were led out one by one from
the stable. It was evidently a sale of considerable
moment, and there were horse-raisers, horse-
trainers, jockeys, stable-boys, gentlemen — all eager
spectators or bidders. Chad edged his way
through the outer rim of the crowd and to the
edge of the sidewalk, and, when a spectator
stepped down from a dry-goods box from which he
had been looking on, Chad stepped up and took
his place. Straightway, he began to wish he could
buy a horse and ride back to the mountains. What
fun that would be, and how he would astonish the
folks on Kingdom Come. He had his five dollars
still in his pocket, and when the first horse was
brought out, the auctioneer raised his hammer and
shouted in loud tones:

" How much am I offered for this horse ?"

There was no answer, and the silence lasted so
long that before he knew it Chad called out in a
voice that frightened him:

"Five dollars!" Nobody heard the bid, and
nrbody paid any attention to him.

"One hundred dollars," said a voice.

"One hundred and twenty-five," said another,
and the horse was knocked down for two hundred
dollars.

A black stallion with curving neck and red nos
trils and two white feet walked proudly in.

99

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"How much am I offered ?"

"Five dollars," said Chad, promptly. A man
who sat near heard the boy and turned to look at
the little fellow, and was hardly able to believe his
ears. And so it went on. Each time a horse was
put up Chad shouted out:

"Five dollars," and the crowd around him be
gan to smile and laugh and encourage him and
wait for his bid. The auctioneer, too, saw him,
and entered into the fun himself, addressing him
self to Chad at every opening bid.

"Keep it up, little man," said a voice behind
him. "You'll get one by and by." Chad looked
around. Richard Hunt was smiling to him from
his horse on the edge of the crowd.

The last horse was a brown mare — led in by
a halter. She was old and a trifle lame, and Chad,
still undispirited, called out this time louder than
ever :

"Five dollars!"

He shouted out this time loudly enough to be
heard by everybody, and a universal laugh rose;
then came silence, and, in that silence, an imperi
ous voice shouted back:

"Let him have her!" It was the owner of the
horse who spoke — a tall man with a noble face and
long iron-gray hair. The crowd caught his mood,
and as nobody wanted the old mare very much,
and the owner would be the sole loser, nobody bid

100

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

against him, and Chad's heart thumped when the
auctioneer raised his hammer and said:

" Five dollars, five dollars — what am I offered ?
Five dollars, five dollars, going at five dollars, five
dollars — going at five dollars — going — going,
last bid, gentlemen — gone!" The hammer came
down with a blow that made Chad's heart jump
and brought a roar of laughter from the crowd.

"What is the name, please ?" said the auctioneer,
bending forward with great respect and dignity
toward the diminutive purchaser.

"Chad."

The auctioneer put his hand to one ear:

"I beg your pardon — Dan'l Boone did you
say?"

"No!" shouted Chad indignantly — he began to
feel that fun was going on at his expense. "You
heerd me — Chad'*

"Ah, Mr. Chad."

Not a soul knew the boy, but they liked his
spirit, and several followed him when he went up
and handed his five dollars and took the halter
of his new treasure — trembling so that he could
scarcely stand. The owner of the horse placed
his hand on the little fellow's head.

"Wait a minute," he said, and, turning to a
negro boy: "Jim, go bring a bridle." The boy
brought out a bridle, and the tall man slipped it on
the old mare's head, and Chad led her away — the

101

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

crowd watching him. Just outside he saw the Ma
jor, whose eyes opened wide:

" Where' d you get that old horse, Chad ?"

"Bought her," said Chad.

"What ? What'd you give for her ?"

"Five dollars."

The Major looked pained, for he thought the
boy was lying, but Richard Hunt called him aside
and told the story of the purchase; and then how
the Major did laugh — laughed until the tears
rolled down his face.

And then and there he got out of his carriage
and went into a saddler's shop and bought a brand-
new saddle with a red blanket, and put it on the
old mare and hoisted the boy to his seat. Chad
was to have no little honor in his day, but he never
knew a prouder moment than when he clutched the
reins in his left hand and squeezed his short legs
against the fat sides of that old brown mare.

He rode down the street and back again, and
then the Major told him he had better put the
black boy on the mare, to ride her home ahead of
him, and Chad reluctantly got off and saw the lit
tle darky on his new saddle and his new horse.

"Take good keer o* that hoss, boy," he said,
with a warning shake of his head, and again the
Major roared.

First, the Major said, he would go by the old
University and leave word with the faculty for the

1 02

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

school-master when he should come there to ma
triculate; and so, at a turnstile that led into a
mighty green yard in the middle of which stood a
huge gray mass of stone, the carriage stopped, and
the Major got out and walked through the campus
and up the great flight of stone steps and disap
peared. The mighty columns, the stone steps —
where had Chad heard of them ? And then the
truth flashed. This was the college of which the
school-master had told him down in the mountains,
and, looking, Chad wanted to get closer.

"I wonder if it'll make any difference if I go up
thar ?" he said to the old driver.

"No," the old man hesitated — "no, suh, co'se
not." And Chad climbed out and the old negro
followed him with his eyes. He did not wholly
approve of his master's picking up an unknown boy
on the road. It was all right to let him ride, but
to be taking him home — old Tom shook his head.

"Jess wait till Miss Lucy sees that piece o' white
trash," he said, shaking his head. Chad was walk
ing slowly with his eyes raised. It must be the
college where the school-master had gone to school
—for the building was as big as the cliff" that he
had pointed out down in the mountains, and the
porch was as big as the black rock that he pointed
out at the same time — the college where Caleb
Hazel said Chad, too, must go some day. The
Major was coming out when the boy reached the

103

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

foot of the steps, and with him was a tall, gray
man with spectacles and a white tie and very white
hands, and the Major said:

" There he is now, Professor." And the Pro
fessor looked at Chad curiously, and smiled and
smiled again kindly when he saw the boy's grave,
unsmiling eyes fastened on him.

Then, out of the town and through the late
radiant afternoon they went until the sun sank and
the carriage stopped before a gate. While the
pickaninny was opening it, another carriage went
swiftly behind them, and the Major called out
cheerily to the occupants — a quiet, sombre, digni
fied-looking man and two handsome boys and a lit
tle girl. " They' re my neighbors, Chad," said the
Major.

Not a sound did the wheels make on the thick
turf as they drove toward the old-fashioned brick
house (it had no pillars), with its windows shining
through the firs and cedars that filled the yard.
The Major put his hand on the boy's shoulder:

"Well, here we are, little man."

At the yard gate there was a great barking of
dogs, and a great shout of welcome from the ne
groes who came forward to take the horses. To
each of them the Major gave a little package,
which each darky took with shining teeth and a
laugh of delight — all looking with wonder at the
curious little stranger with his rifle and coonskin

104

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

cap, until a scowl from the Major checked the
smile that started on each black face. Then the
Major led Chad up a flight of steps and into a big
hall and on into a big drawing-room, where
there was a huge fireplace and a great fire that gave
Chad a pang of homesickness at once. Chad was
not accustomed to taking off his hat when he en
tered a house in the mountains, but he saw the Ma
jor take off his, and he dropped his own cap quickly.
The Major sank into a chair.

"Here we are, little man," he said, kindly.

Chad sat down and looked at the books, and
the portraits and prints, and the big mirrors and
the carpets on the floor, none of which he had ever
seen before, and he wondered at it all and what it
all might mean. A few minutes later, a tall lady
in black, with a curl down each side of her pale
face, came in. Like old Tom, the driver, the Ma
jor, too, had been wondering what his sister, Miss
Lucy, would think of his bringing so strange a waif
home, and now, with sudden humor, he saw him
self fortified.

"Sister," he said, solemnly, "here's a little kins
man of yours. He's a great-great-grandson of
your great-great-uncle — Chadwick Buford. That's
his name. What kin does that make us ?"

"Hush, brother," said Miss Lucy, for she saw
the boy reddening with embarrassment and she
went across and shook hands with him, taking in

105

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

with a glance his coarse strange clothes and his
soiled hands and face and his tangled hair, but
pleased at once with his shyness and his dark eyes.
She was really never surprised at any caprice of
her brother, and she did not show much interest
when the Major went on to tell where he had found
the lad — for she would have thought it quite pos
sible that he might have taken the boy out of a
circus. As for Chad, he was in awe of her at once
— which the Major noticed with an inward
chuckle, for the boy had shown no awe of him.
Chad could hardly eat for shyness at supper and
because everything was so strange and beautiful,
and he scarcely opened his lips when they sat
around the great fire, until Miss Lucy was gone
to bed. Then he told the Major all about himself
snd old Nathan and the Turners and the school
master, and how he hoped to come back to the
Bluegrass, and go to that big college himself, and
he amazed the Major when, glancing at the books,
he spelled out the titles of two of Scott's novels,
"The Talisman" and " Ivanhoe," and told how the
school-master had read them to him. And the Ma
jor, who had a passion for Sir Walter, tested
Chad's knowledge, and he could mention hardly
a character or a scene in the two books that did not
draw an excited response from the boy.

"Wouldn't you like to stay here in the Bluegrass
now and go to school ? "

1 06

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

Chad's eyes lighted up.

"I reckon I would; but how am I goin* to
school, now, I'd like to know ? I ain't got no money
to buy books, and the school-teacher said you have
to pay to go to school, up here."

"Well, we'll see about that," said the Major,
and Chad wondered what he meant. Presently the
Major got up and went to the sideboard and
poured out a drink of whiskey and, raising it to his
lips, stopped:

"Will you join me?" he asked, humorously,
though it was hard for the Major to omit that
formula even with a boy.

" I don't keer if I do," said Chad, gravely. The
Major was astounded and amused, and thought
that the boy was not in earnest, but he handed him
the bottle and Chad poured out a drink that stag
gered his host, and drank it down without wink
ing. At the fire, the Major pulled out his chewing-
tobacco. This, too, he offered and Chad accepted,
equalling the Major in the accuracy with which he
reached the fireplace thereafter with the juice, car
rying off his accomplishment, too, with perfect and
unconscious gravity. The Major was nigh to split
ting with silent laughter for a few minutes, and
then he grew grave.

"Does everybody drink and chew down in the
mountains ?"

107

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Yes, sir," said Chad. "Everybody makes his
own licker where I come from."

" Don't you know it's very bad for little boys to
drink and chew ?"

"No, sir."

"Did nobody ever tell you it was very bad for
little boys to drink and chew ?"

"No, sir" — not once had Chad forgotten that
"sir."

"Well, it is."

Chad thought for a minute. "Will it keep me
from gittin' to be a big man ?"

"Yes."

Chad quietly threw his quid into the fire.

"Well, I be damned," said the Major under his
breath. "Are you goin' to quit ?"

"Yes, sir."

Meanwhile, the old driver, whose wife lived on
the next farm, was telling the servants over there
about the queer little stranger whom his master
had picked up on the road that day, and after Chad
was gone to bed, the Major got out some old letters
from a chest and read them over again. Chad-
wick Buford was his great-grandfather's twin
brother, and not a word had been heard of him
since the two had parted that morning on the old
Wilderness Road, away back in the earliest pio
neer days. So, the Major thought and thought
— "suopose — suppose— And at last he got up

1 08

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

and with an uplifted candle, looked a long while at
the portrait of his grandfather that hung on the
southern wall. Then, with a sudden humor, he
carried the light to the room where the boy was
in sound sleep, with his head on one sturdy arm,
his hair loose on the pillow, and his lips slightly
parted and showing his white, even teeth; he
looked at the boy a long time and fancied he could
see some resemblance to the portrait in the set of the
mouth and the nose and the brow, and he went
back smiling at his fancies and thinking — for the
Major was sensitive to the claim of any drop of
the blood in his own veins — no matter how diluted.
He was a handsome little chap.

"How strange! How strange!"

And he smiled when he thought of the boy's last
question.

"Where's yo' mammy?"

It had stirred the Major.

"I am like you, Chad," he had said. "I've got
no mammy — no nothin', except Miss Lucy, and
she don't live here. I'm afraid she won't be on
this earth long. t Nobody lives here but me, Chad."

109

IX

MARGARET

* I AHE Major was in town and Miss Lucy had
gone to spend the day with a neighbor; so
Chad was left alone.

"Look aroun', Chad, and see how you like
things," said the Major. "Go anywhere you
please."

And Chad looked around. He went to the
barn to see his old mare and the Major's horses,
and to the kennels, where the fox-hounds reared
against the palings and sniffed at him curiously;
he strolled about the quarters, where the little pick
aninnies were playing, and out to the fields, where
the servants were at work under the overseer, Je
rome Conners, a tall, thin man with shrewd eyes, a
sour, sullen face, and protruding upper teeth. One
of the few smiles that ever came to that face came
now when the overseer saw the little mountaineer.
By and by Chad got one of the "hands" to let him
take hold of the plough and go once around the
field, and the boy handled the plough like a vet
eran, so that the others watched him, and the negro
grinned, when he came back, and said:

"You sutinly can plough fer a fac'!"

IIO

MARGARET

He was lonesome by noon and had a lonely din
ner, during which he could scarcely realize that it
was really he — Chad — Chad sitting up at the ta
ble alone and being respectfully waited on by a
kinky-headed little negro girl — called Thanky-
ma'am because she was born on Thanksgiving day
— and he wondered what the Turners would think
if they could see him now — and the school-master.
Where was the school-master ? He began to be
sorry that he hadn't gone to town to try to find
him. Perhaps the Major would see him — but
how would the Major know th'e school-master ?
He was sorry he hadn't gone. After dinner he
started out-doors again. Earth and sky were ra
diant with light. Great white tumbling clouds
were piled high all around the horizon — and what
a long length of sky it was in every direction!
Down in the mountains, he had to look straight
up, sometimes, to see the sky at all. Blackbirds
chattered in the cedars as he went to the yard gate.
The field outside was full of singing meadow-larks,
and crows were cawing in the woods beyond.
There had been a light shower, and on the dead
top of a tall tree he saw a buzzard stretching his
wings out to the sun. Past the edge of the woods,
ran a little stream with banks that were green to
the very water's edge, and Chad followed it on
through the woods, over a worm rail-fence, along
a sprouting wheat-field, out into a pasture in which

in

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

sheep and cattle were grazing, and on, past a little
hill, where, on the next low slope, sat a great white
house with big white pillars, and Chad climbed on
top of the stone fence — and sat, looking. On the
portico stood a tall man in a slouch hat and a
lady in black. At the foot of the steps a boy
— a head taller than Chad perhaps — was rig
ging up a fishing-pole. A negro boy was lead
ing a black pony toward the porch, and, to his
dying day, Chad never forgot the scene that fol
lowed. For, the next moment, a little figure in
a long riding-skirt stood in the big doorway and
then ran down the steps, while a laugh, as joyous
as the water running at his feet, floated down the
slope to his ears. He saw the negro stoop, the little
girl bound lightly to her saddle; he saw her black
curls shake in the sunlight, again the merry laugh
tinkled in his ears, and then, with a white plume
nodding from her black cap, she galloped off and
disappeared among the trees; and Chad sat looking
after her — thrilled, mysteriouisly thrilled — myste
riously saddened, straightway. Would he ever see
her again ?

The tall man and the lady in black went in-doors,
the negro disappeared, and the boy at the foot of
the steps kept on rigging his pole. Several times
voices sounded under the high creek bank below
him, but, quick as his ears were, Chad did not hear
them. Suddenly there was a cry that startled him,

112

MARGARET

and something flashed in the sun over the edge of
the bank and flopped in the grass.

"Snowball!" an imperious young voice called
below the bank, "get that fish!"

On the moment Chad was alert again — some
body was fishing down there — and he sprang from
his perch and ran toward the fish just as a woolly
head and a jet-black face peeped over the bank.

The pickaninny's eyes were stretched wide when
he saw the strange figure in coonskin cap and
moccasins running down on him, his face almost
blanched with terror, and he loosed his hold and,
with a cry of fright, rolled back out of sight. Chad
looked over the bank. A boy of his own age was
holding another pole, and, hearing the little darky
slide down, he said, sharply:

"Get that fish, I tell you!"

"Look dar, Mars' Dan, look dar!"

The boy looked around and up and stared with
as much wonder as his little body-servant, but with
no fear.

" Howdye ! " said Chad ; but the white boy stared
on silently.

"Fishin'?" said Chad.

"Yes," said Dan, shortly — he had shown
enough curiosity and he turned his eyes to his cork.
"Get that fish, Snowball," he said again.

"I'll git him fer ye," Chad said; and he went
to the fish and unhooked it and came down the bank

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

with the perch in one hand and the pole in the
other.

" Whar's yo' string ?" he asked, handing the pole
to the still trembling little darky.

"I'll take it," said Dan, sticking the butt of his
cane-pole in the mud. The fish slipped through his
wet fingers, when Chad passed it to him, dropped
on the bank, flopped to the edge of the creek, and
the three boys, with the same cry, scrambled for it
— Snowball falling down on it and clutching it in
both his black little paws.

"Dar now!" he shrieked. "I got him!"

"Give him to me," said Dan.

"Lemme string him," said the black boy.

"Give him to me, I tell you!" And, stringing
the fish, Dan took the other pole and turned his
eyes to his corks, while the pickaninny squatted be
hind him and Chad climbed up and sat on the bank
— letting his legs dangle over. When Dan caught
a fish he would fling it with a whoop high over the
bank. After the third fish, the lad was mollified
and got over his ill-temper. He turned to Chad:

"Want to fish?"

Chad sprang down the bank quickly.

"Yes," he said, and he took the other pole out
of the bank, put on a fresh wriggling worm, and
moved a little farther down the creek where there
was an eddy.

"Ketchin' any?" said a voice above the bank'
114

MARGARET

and Chad looked up to see still another lad, taller
by a head than either he or Dan — evidently the boy
whom he had seen rigging a pole up at the big
house on the hill.

"Oh, 'bout 'leven," said Dan, carelessly.

"Howdye!" said Chad.

"Howdye!" said the other boy, and he, too,
stared curiously, but Chad had got used to people
staring at him.

"I'm goin' over the big rock," added the new
arrival, and he went down the creek and climbed
around a steep little cliff, and out on a huge rock
that hung over the creek, where he dropped his
hook. He had no cork, and Chad knew that he
was trying to catch catfish. Presently he jerked,
and a yellow mudcat rose to the surface, fighting
desperately for his life, and Dan and Snowball
yelled crazily. Then Dan pulled out a perch.

"I got another one," he shouted. And Chad
fished silently. They were making "a mighty big
fuss," he thought, "over mighty little fish. If he
just had a minnow an' had 'em down in the moun
tains, T Connies, he'd show 'em what fishin' was!"
But he began to have good luck as it was. Perch
after perch he pulled out quietly, and he kept Snow
ball busy stringing them until he had five on the
string. The boy on the rock was watching him
and so was the boy near him — furtively — while
Snowball's admiration was won completely, and he

"5

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

grinned and gurgled his delight, until Dan lost his
temper again and spoke to him sharply. Dan did
not like to be beaten at anything. Pretty soon
there was a light thunder of hoofs on the turf
above the bank. A black pony shot around the
bank and was pulled in at the edge of the ford, and
Chad was looking into the dancing black eyes of a
little girl with a black velvet cap on her dark curls
and a white plume waving from it.

"Howdye!" said Chad, and his heart leaped
curiously, but the little girl did not answer. She,
too, stared at him as all the others had done and
started to ride into the creek, but Dan stopped her
sharply:

"Now, Margaret, don't you ride into that wa
ter. You'll skeer the fish."

"No, you won't," said Chad, promptly. "Fish
don't keer nothin' about a hoss." But the little
girl stood still, and her brother's face flushed. He
resented the stranger's interference and his assump
tion of a better knowledge of fish.

"Mind your own business," trembled on his
tongue, and the fact that he held the words back
only served to increase his ill-humor and make a
worse outbreak possible. But, if Chad did not un
derstand, Snowball did, and his black face grew
suddenly grave as he sprang more alertly than
ever at any word from his little master. Mean
while, all unconscious, Chad fished on, catching

116

MARGARET

perch after perch, but he could not keep his eyes
on his cork while the little girl was so near, and
more than once he was warned by a suppressed
cry from the pickaninny when to pull. Once, when
he was putting on a worm, he saw the little girl
watching the process with great disgust, and he
remembered that Melissa would never bait her
own hook. All girls were alike, he "reckoned"
to himself, and when he caught a fish that was
unusually big, he walked over to her.

" I'll give this un to you," he said, but she shrank
from it.

"Go 'way!'* she said, and she turned her pony.
Dan was red in the face by this time. How did
this piece of poor white trash dare to offer a fish to
his sister ? And this time the words came out like
the crack of a whip:

"S'pose you mind your own business!"

Chad started as though he had been struck and
looked around quickly. He said nothing, but he
stuck the butt of his pole in the mud at once and
climbed up on the bank again and sat there, with
his legs hanging over; and his own face was not
pleasant to see. The little girl was riding at a
walk up the road. Chad kept perfect silence, for
he realized that he had not been minding his own
business; still he did not like to be told so and in
such a way. Both corks were shaking at the same
time now.

117

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"You got a bite," said Dan, but Chad did not
move.

"You got a bite, I tell you," he said, in almost
the tone he had used to Snowball, but Chad,
when the small aristocrat looked sharply around,
dropped his elbows to his knees and his chin into
his hand — taking no notice. Once he spat dex
terously into the creek. Dan's own cork was going
under:

"Snowball!" he cried— "jerk!" A fish flew
over Chad's head. Snowball had run for the other
pole at command and jerked, too, but the fish was
gone and with it the bait.

"You lost that fish!" said the boy, hotly, but
Chad sat silent — still. If he would only say some
thing! Dan began to think that the stranger was
a coward. So presently, to show what a great little
man he was, he began to tease Snowball, who was
up on the bank unhooking the fish, of which Chad
had taken no notice.

"What's your name?"

"Snowball!" shouted the black little henchman,
obediently.

"Louder!"

"S-n-o-w-b-a-l-l-!"

"Louder!" The little black fellow opened his
mouth wide.

-S-N-O-W-B-A-L-L!" he shrieked.

"LOUDER!"

118

MARGARET

At last Chad spoke — quietly.

"He can't holler no louder."

"What do you know about it? Louder!" and
Dan started menacingly after the little darky: but
Chad stepped between.

"Don't hit him!"

Now Dan had never struck Snowball in his life,
and he would as soon have struck his own brother
—but he must not be told that he couldn't. His
face flamed and little Hotspur that he was, he drew
his fist back and hit Chad full in the chest. Chad
leaped back to avoid the blow, tumbling Snowball
down the bank; the two clinched, and, while they
tussled, Chad heard the other brother clambering
-over the rocks, the beat of hoofs coming toward
him on the turf, and the little girl's cry:

"Don't you dare touch my brother!"

Both went down side by side with their heads
just hanging over the bank, where both could see
Snowball's black wool coming to the surface in the
deep hole, and both heard his terrified shriek as he
went under again. Chad was first to his feet.

"Git a rail!" he shouted and plunged in, but
Dan sprang in after him. In three strokes, for
the current was rather strong, Chad had the kinky
wool in his hand, and, in a few strokes more, the
two boys had Snowball gasping on the bank.
Harry, the taller brother, ran forward to help them
carry him up the bank, and they laid him, choking

119

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

and bawling, on the grass. Whip in one hand and
with the skirt of her long black riding-habit in the
other, the little girl stood above, looking on — •
white and frightened. The hullabaloo had reached
the house and General Dean was walking swiftly
down the hill, with Snowball's mammy, topped by
a red bandanna handkerchief, rushing after him
and the kitchen servants following.

"What does this mean?" he said, sternly, and
Chad was in a strange awe at once — he was so
tall, and he stood so straight, and his eye was so
piercing. Few people could lie into that eye. The
little girl spoke first — usually she does speak first,
as well as last.

"Dan and — and — that boy were fighting and
they pushed Snowball into the creek."

" Dan was teasin' Snowball," said Harry the just.

"And that boy meddled," said Dan.

"Who struck first?" asked the General, looking
from one boy to the other. Dan dropped his eyes
sullenly and Chad did not answer.

"I wasn't goin' to hit Snowball," said Dan.

"I thought you wus," said Chad.

"Who struck first ?" repeated the General, look
ing at Dan now.

'That boy meddled and I hit him."

Chad turned and answered the General's eyes
steadily.

"I reckon 1 had no business meddlin'!"
120

MARGARET

" He tried to give sister a fish/'

That was unwise in Dan — Margaret's chin
lifted.

"Oh," she said, "that was it, too, was it?
Well-

"I didn't see no harm givin' the little gal a fish,"
said Chad. "Little gal," indeed'! Chad lost the
ground he might have gained. Margaret's eyes
looked all at once like her father's.

" I'm a little girl, thank you."

Chad turned to her father now, looking him in
the face straight and steadily.

"I reckon I had no business meddlin', but I
•didn't think hit was fa'r fer him to hit the nigger;
the nigger was littler, an' I didn't think hit was
right."

"I didn't mean to hit him — I was only playin'!"

" But I thought you was goin' to hit him," said
Chad. He looked at the General again. "But I
had no business meddlin'." And he picked up his
old coonskin cap from the grass to start away.

"Hold on, little man," said the General.

"Dan, haven't I told you not to tease Snow
ball ?" Dan dropped his eyes again.

"Yes, sir."

"You struck first, and this boy says he oughtn't
to have meddled, but I think he did just right.
Have you anything to say to him ?" Dan worked
the toe of his left boot into the turf for a m@men<-

121

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"No, sir."

"Well, go up to your room and think about it
awhile and see if you don't owe somebody an
apology. Hurry up now an' change your clothes.
You'd better come up to the house and get some
dry clothes for yourself, my boy," he added to
Chad. "You'll catch cold."

"Much obleeged," said Chad. "But I don't
ketch cold."

He put on his old coonskin cap, and then the
General recognized him.

"Why, aren't you the little boy who bought a
horse from me in town the other day ?" And then
Chad recognized him as the tall man who had cried
out:

"Let him have her."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I know all about you," said the Genera?,,
kindly. "You are staying with Major Buford.
He's a great friend and neighbor of mine. Now
you must come up and get sdme clothes, Harry!"
—But Chad, though he hesitated, for he knew now
that the gentleman had practically given him the
old mare, interrupted, sturdily,

"No, sir, I can't go — not while he's a-feelin'
hard at me."

"Very well," said the General, gravely. Chad
started off on a trot and stopped suddenly.

"I wish you'd please tell that little gurl" —
122

MARGARET

Chad pronounced the word with some difficulty
— "that I didn't mean nothin' callin' her a little
gal. Ever'body calls gurls gals whar I com*7
from."

"All right," laughed the General. Chad trot
ted all the way home and there Miss Lucy made
him take off his wet clothes at once, though the boy
had to go to bed while they were drying, for he
had no other clothes, and while he lay in bed the
Major came up and listened to Chad's story of the
afternoon, which Chad told him word for word
just as it had all happened.

"You did just right, Chad," said the Major, and
he went down the stairs, chuckling:

"Wouldn't go in and get dry clothes because
Dan wouldn't apologize. Dear me! I reckon
they'll have it out when they see each other again.
I'd like to be on hand, and I'd bet my bottom dol
lar on Chad." But they did not have it out. Half
an hour after supper somebody shouted "Hello!"
at the gate, and the Major went out and came back
smiling.

"Somebody wants to see you, Chad/* he said.
And Chad went out and found Dan there on the
black pony with Snowball behind him.

"I've come over to say that I had no business
hittin' you down at the creek, and — " Chad in
terrupted him:

"That's all right," he said, and Dan stopped

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

and thrust out his hand. The two boys shook
hands gravely.

"An' my papa says you are a man an' he wants
you to come over and see us and I want you — and
Harry and Margaret. We all want you."

"All right," said Chad. Dan turned his black
pony and galloped off.

"An' come soon!" he shouted back.

Out in the quarters Mammy Ailsie, old Tom's
wife, was having her own say that night.

"Ole Marse Cal Buford pickin' a piece o' white
trash out de gutter an* not sayin* whar he come
from an' nuttin' 'bout him. An' old Mars Henry
takin' him jus' like he was quality. My Tom say
dat boy don' know who is his mammy ner his
daddy. I ain' gwine to let my little mistis play wid
no sech trash, I tell you — 'deed I ain't!" And this
talk would reach the drawing-room by and by,
where the General was telling the family, at just
about the same hour, the story of the horse sale
and Chad's purchase of the old brood mare.

"I knew where he was from right away," said
Harry. "I've seen mountain-people wearing caps
like his up at Uncle Brutus's, when they come down
to go to Richmond."

The General frowned.

"Well, you won't <see any more people like him
up there again."

"Why, papa?"

124

MARGARET

"Because you aren't going to Uncle Brutus' s
any more/'

"Why, papa?"

The mother put her hand on her husband's
knee.

"Never mind, son," she said.

THE BLUEGRASS

Country!

No humor in that phrase to the Blue-
grass Kentuckian! There never was — there is
none now. To him, the land seems in all the New
World, to have been the pet shrine of the Great
Mother herself. She fashioned it with loving
hands. She shut it in with a mighty barrier of
mighty mountains to keep the mob out. She gave
it the loving clasp of a mighty river, and spread
broad, level prairies beyond that the mob might
glide by, or be tempted to the other side, where
the earth was level and there was no need to climb:
that she might send priests from her shrine to re
claim Western wastes or let the weak or the unlov
ing — if such could be — have easy access to another
land.

In the beginning, such was her clear purpose to
the Kentuckian's eye, she filled it with flowers and
grass and trees, and fish and bird and wild beast,
just as she made Eden for Adam and Eve. The
red men fought for the Paradise — fought till it
was drenched with blood, but no tribe, without a

126

THE BLUEGRASS

mortal challenge from another straightway, could
ever call a rood its own. Boone loved the land
from the moment the eagle eye in his head swept
its shaking wilderness from a mountain-top, and
every man who followed him loved the land no
less. And when the chosen came, they found the
earth ready to receive them — lifted above the
baneful breath of river-bottom and marshland,
drained by rivers full of fish, filled with woods full
of game, and underlaid — all — with thick, blue,
limestone strata that, like some divine agent work
ing in the dark, kept crumbling — ever crumbling
—to enrich the soil and give bone-building virtue
to every drop of water and every blade of grass.
For those chosen people — such, too, seemed her
purpose — the Mother went to the race upon whom
she had smiled a benediction for a thousand years
—the race that obstacle but strengthens, that
thrives best under an alien effort to kill, that has
ever conquered its conquerors, and that seems bent
on the task of carrying the best ideals any age has
ever known back to the Old World from which it
sprang. The Great Mother knows! Knows that
her children must suffer, if they stray too far from her
great teeming breasts. And how she has followed
close when this Saxon race — her youngest born —
seemed likely to stray too far — gathering its sons
to her arms in virgin lands that they might suckle
again and keep the old blood fresh and strong.

127

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Who could know what danger threatened it when
she sent her blue-eyed men and women to people
the wilderness of the New World ? To climb the
Alleghanies, spread through the wastes beyond,
and plant their kind across a continent from sea to
sea. Who knows what dangers threaten now,
when, this task done, she seems to be opening the
eastern gates of the earth with a gesture that seems
to say — "Enter, reclaim, and dwell therein!"

One little race of that race in the New World,
and one only, has she kept flesh of her flesh, bone
of her bone — to that race only did she give no
^outside aid. She shut it in with gray hill and
rshining river. She shut it off from the mother
.state and the mother nation and left it to fight
jts own fight with savage nature, savage beast, and
savage man. And thus she gave the little race
strength of heart and body and brain, and taught
•it to stand together as she taught each man of the
race to stand alone, protect his women, mind his
own business, and meddle not at all; to think his
own thoughts and die for them if need be, though
he divided his own house against itself; taught
the man to cleave to one woman, with the penalty
of death if he strayed elsewhere; to keep her — •
and even himself — in dark ignorance of the sins
against Herself for which she has slain other na
tions, and in that happy ignorance keeps them to
day, even while she is slaying elsewhere still.

128

THE BLUEGRASS

And Nature holds the Kentuckians close even
to-day — suckling at her breasts and living after
her simple laws. What further use she may have
for them is hid by the darkness of to-morrow, but
before the Great War came she could look upon
her work and say with a smile that it was good.
The land was a great series of wooded parks such
as one might have found in Merry England, ex
cept that worm fence and stone wall took the
place of hedge along the highways. It was a land
of peace and of a plenty that was close to easy
luxury — for all. Poor whites were few, the beg
gar was unknown, and throughout the region there
was no man, woman, or child, perhaps, who did
not have enough to eat and to wear and a roof to-
cover his head, whether it was his own roof or
not. If slavery had to be — then the fetters were
forged light and hung loosely. And, broadcast,
through the people, was the upright sturdiness of
the Scotch-Irishman, without his narrowness and
bigotry; the grace and chivalry of the Cavalier
without his Quixotic sentiment and his weakness;
the jovial good-nature of the English squire and
the leavening 'spirit of a simple yeomanry that
bore itself with unconscious tenacity to traditions
that seeped from the very earth. And the wings
of the eagle hovered over all.

For that land it was the flowering time of the
age and the people; and the bud that was about

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

to open into the perfect flower had its living sym
bol in the little creature racing over the bluegrass
fields on a black pony, with a black velvet cap and
a white nodding plume above her shaking curls,
just as the little stranger who had floated down
into those Elysian fields — with better blood in his
veins than he knew — was a reincarnation perhaps
of the spirit of the old race that had lain dormant
in the hills. The long way from log-cabin to
Greek portico had marked the progress of the
.generations before her; and, on this same way,
boy had set his sturdy feet.

130

XI

A TOURNAMENT

Sunday, the Major and Miss Lucy took
Chad to church — a country church built of
red brick and overgrown with ivy — and the ser
mon was very short, Chad thought, for, down in
the mountains, the circuit-rider would preach for
hours — and the deacons passed around velvet
pouches for the people to drop money in, and
they passed around bread, of which nearly every
body took a pinch, and a silver goblet with wine,
from which the same people took a sip — all of
which Chad did not understand. Usually the
Deans went to Lexington to church, for they were
Episcopalians, but they were all at the country
church that day, and with them was Richard
Hunt, who smiled at Chad and waved his riding-
whip. After church Dan came to him and shook
hands. Harry nodded to him gravely, the mother
smiled kindly, and the General put his hand on
the boy's head. Margaret looked at him fur
tively, but passed him by. Perhaps she was still
"mad" at him, Chad thought, and he was much
worried. Margaret was not shy like Melissa, but
her face was kind. The General asked them all

131

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

over to take dinner, but Miss Lucy declined-
she had asked people to take dinner with her.
And Chad, with keen disappointment, saw them
drive away.

It was a lonely day for him that Sunday. He
got tired staying so long at the table, and he did
not understand what the guests were talking about.
The afternoon was long, and he wandered rest
lessly about the yard and the quarters. Jerome
Conners, the overseer, tried to be friendly with
him for the first time, but the boy did not like
the overseer and turned away from him. He
walked down to the pike gate and sat on it, look
ing over toward the Deans'. He wished that
Dan would come over to see him or, better still,
that he could go over to see Dan and Harry
and — Margaret. But Dan did not come and
Chad could not ask the Major to let him go —
he was too shy about it — and Chad was glad
when bedtime came

Two days more and spring was come in ear
nest. It was in the softness of the air, the ten
derness of cloud and sky, and the warmth of the
sunlight. The grass was greener and the trees
quivered happily. Hens scratched and cocks
crowed more lustily. Insect life was busier. A
stallion nickered in the barn, and from the fields
came the mooing of cattle. Field-hands going to
work chaffed the maids about the house and quar-

132

A TOURNAMENT

ters. It stirred dreamy memories of his youth in
the Major, and it brought a sad light into Miss
Lucy's faded eyes. Would she ever see another
spring ? It brought tender memories to General
Dean, and over at Woodlawn, after he and Mrs.
Dean had watched the children go off with happy
cries and laughter to school, it led them back into
the house hand in hand. And it set Chad's heart
aglow as he walked through the dewy grass and
amid the singing of many birds toward the pike
gate. He, too, was on his way to school — in a
brave new suit of clothes — and nobody smiled at
him now, except admiringly, for the Major had
taken him to town the preceding day and had got
the boy clothes such as Dan and Harry wore.
Chad was worried at first — he did not like to
accept so much from the Major.

"I'll pay you back," said Chad. "I'll leave
you my hoss when I go 'way, if I don't," and the
Major laughingly said that was all right and he
made Chad, too, think that it was all right. And
so spring took the shape of hope in Chad's breast,
that morning, and a little later it took the shape
of Margaret, for he soon saw the Dean children
ahead of him in the road and he ran to catch up
with them.

All looked at him with surprise — seeing his
broad white collar with ruffles, his turned-back,
ruffled cuffs, and his boots with red tops; but they

'33

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

were too polite to say anything. Still Chad felt
Margaret taking them all in and he was proud
and confident. And, when her eyes were lifted to
the handsome face that rose from the collar and
the thick yellow hair, he caught them with his
own in an unconscious look of fealty, that made
the little girl blush and hurry on and not look at
him again until they were in school, when she
turned her eyes, as did all the other boys and
girls, to scan the new "scholar." Chad's work
in the mountains came in well now. The teacher,
a gray, sad-eyed, thin-faced man, was surprised at
the boy's capacity, for he could read as well as
Dan, and in mental arithmetic even Harry was
no match for him; and when in the spelling class
he went from the bottom to the head in a single
lesson, the teacher looked as though he were going
to give the boy a word of praise openly and Mar
garet was regarding him with a new light in her
proud eyes. That was a happy day for Chad, but
it passed after school when, as they went home
together, Margaret looked at him no more; else
Chad would have gone by the Deans' house when
Dan and Harry asked him to go and look at their
ponies and the new sheep that their father had
just bought; for Chad was puzzled and awed
and shy of the little girl. It was strange — he
had never felt that way about Melissa. But his
shyness kept him away from her day after day

134

A TOURNAMENT

until, one morning, he saw her ahead of him
going to school alone, and his heart thumped as
he quietly and swiftly overtook her without call
ing to her; but he stopped running that she might
not know that he had been running, and for the
first time she was shy with him. Harry and Dan
were threatened with the measles, she said, and
would say no more. When they went through
the fields toward the school-house, Chad stalked
ahead as he had done in the mountains with Me
lissa, and, looking back, he saw that Margaret
had stopped. He waited for her to come up, and
she looked at him for a moment as though dis
pleased. Puzzled, Chad gave back her look for
a moment and turned without a word — still stalk
ing ahead. He looked back presently and Mar
garet had stopped and was pouting.

"You aren't polite, little boy. My mamma
says a nice little boy always lets a little girl go first."
But Chad still walked ahead. He looked back
presently and she had stopped again — whether
angry or ready to cry, he could not make out —
so he waited for her, and as she came slowly near
he stepped gravely from the path, and Margaret
went on like a queen.

In town, a few days later, he saw a little fellow
take off his hat when a lady passed him, and it
set Chad to thinking. He recalled asking the
school-master once what was meant when the latter

135

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

read about a knight doffing his plume, and the
school-master had told him that men, in those days,
took off their hats in the presence of ladies just as
they did in the Bluegrass now; but Chad had for
gotten. He understood it all then and he surprised
Margaret, next morning, by taking off his cap
gravely when he spoke to her; and the little lady
was greatly pleased, for her own brothers did not
do that, at least, not to her, though she had heard
her mother tell them that they must. All this must
be chivalry, Chad thought, and when Harry and
Dan got well, he revived his old ideas, but Harry
laughed at him and Dan did, too, until Chad, re
membering Beelzebub, suggested that they should
have a tournament with two rams that the General
had tied up in the stable. They would make spears
and each would get on a ram. Harry would let
them out into the lot and they would have "a real
charge — sure enough." But Margaret received
the plan with disdain, until Dan, at Chad's sug
gestion, asked the General to read them the tour
nament scene in " Ivanhoe," which excited the little
lady a great deal; and when Chad said that she
must be the " Queen of Love and Beauty" she
blushed prettily and thought, after all, that it
would be great fun. They would make lances of
ash-wood and helmets of tin buckets, and perhaps
Margaret would make red sashes for them. In
deed, she would, and the tournament would take

A TOURNAMENT

place on the next Saturday. But, on Saturday, one
of the sheep was taken over to Major Buford's
and the other was turned loose in the Major's back
pasture and the great day had to be postponed.

It was on the night of the reading from " Ivan-
hoe" that Harry and Dan found out how Chad
could play the banjo. Passing old Mammy's cabin
that night before supper, the three boys had
stopped to listen to old Tom play, and after a few
tunes, Chad could stand it no longer.

"I foller pickin' the banjer a leetle," he said shy
ly, and thereupon he had taken the rude instrument
and made the old negro's eyes stretch with amaze
ment, while Dan rolled in the grass with delight,
and every negro who heard ran toward the boy.
After supper, Dan brought the banjo into the house
and made Chad play on the porch, to the delight
of them all. And there, too, the servants gathered,
and even old Mammy was observed slyly shaking
her foot — so that Margaret clapped her hands and
laughed the old woman into great confusion.
After that no Saturday came that Chad did not
spend the night at the Deans', or Harry and Dan
did not stay at Major Buford's. And not a Satur
day passed that the three boys did not go 'coon-hunt
ing with the darkies, or fox-hunting with the Major
and the General. Chad never forgot that first star
lit night when he was awakened by the near wind
ing of a horn and heard the Major jump from bed

J37

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

He jumped too, and when the Major reached the
barn, a dark little figure was close at his heels.

"Can I go, too ?" Chad asked, eagerly.

" Think you can stick on ?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Get my bay horse. That old mare
of yours is too slow."

The Major's big bay horse! Chad was dizzy
with pride.

When they galloped out into the dark woods,
there were the General and Harry and Dan and
half a dozen neighbors, sitting silently on their
horses and listening to the music of the hounds.

The General laughed.

"I thought you'd come," he said, and the Ma
jor laughed too, and cocked his ear. "Old Rock's
ahead," he said, for he knew, as did everyone there,
the old hound's tongue.

"He's been ahead for an hour," said the General
with quiet satisfaction, "and I think he'll stay
there."

Just then a dark object swept past them, and the
Major with a low cry hied on his favorite hound.

"Not now, I reckon," he said, and the General
laughed again.

Dan and Harry pressed their horses close to
Chad, and all talked in low voices.

"Ain't it fun ?" whispered Dan. Chad answered
with a shiver of pure joy.

138

A TOURNAMENT

"He's making for the creek," said the Major,
sharply, and he touched spurs to his horse. How
they raced through the woods, cracking brush and
whisking around trees, and how they thundered
over the turf and clattered across the road and on!
For a few moments the Major kept close to Chad,
watching him anxiously, but the boy stuck to the
big bay like a jockey, and he left Dan and Harry
on their ponies far behind. All night they rode un
der the starlit sky, and ten miles away they caught
poor Reynard. Chad was in at the kill, with the
Major and the General, and the General gave
Chad the brush with his own hand.

"Where did you learn to ride, boy?"

"I never learned," said Chad, simply, whereat
the Major winked at his friends and patted Chad
on the shoulder.

"I've got to let my boys ride better horses, I
suppose," said the General; "I can't have a boy
who does not know how to ride beating them this
way."

Day was breaking when the Major and Chad
rode into the stable-yard. The boy's face was pale,
his arms and legs ached, and he was so sleepy that
he could hardly keep his eyes open.

"How'd you like it, Chad?"

"I never knowed nothing like it in my life," said
Chad.

"I'm going to teach you to shoot."

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Yes, sir," said Chad.

As they approached the house, a squirrel barked
from the woods.

"Hear that, Chad?" said the Major. "We'll
get him."

The following morning, Chad rose early and
took his old rifle out into the woods, and when the
Major came out on the porch before breakfast the
boy was coming up the walk with six squirrels in
his hand. The Major's eyes opened and he looked
at the squirrels when Chad dropped them on the
porch. Every one of them was shot through the
head.

"Well, I'm damned! How many times did you
shoot, Chad ?"

"Seven."

"What — missed only once?"

"I took a knot fer a squirrel once," said Chad.

The Major roared aloud.

"Did I say I was going to teach you to shoot,
Chad?"

"Yes, sir."

The Major chuckled and that day he told about
those squirrels and that knot to everybody he saw.
With every day the Major grew fonder and
prouder of the boy and more convinced than ever
that the lad was of his own blood.

'There's nothing that I like that that boy don't
take to like a duck to water." And when he saw

140

A TOURNAMENT

the boy take off his hat to Margaret and observed
his manner with the little girl, he said to himself
that if Chad wasn't a gentleman born, he ought to
have been, and the Major believed that he must be.

Everywhere, at school, at the Deans', with the
darkies — with everybody but Conners, the over
seer — Chad became a favorite, but, as to Napoleon,
so to Chad, came Waterloo — with the long de
ferred tournament came Waterloo to Chad.

And it came after a certain miracle on May-day.
The Major had taken Chad to the festival where
the dance was on sawdust in the woodland — in the
bottom of a little hollow, around which the seats
ran as in an amphitheatre. Ready to fiddle for
them stood none other than John Morgan himself,
his gray eyes dancing and an arch smile on his
handsome face; and, taking a place among the
dancers, were Richard Hunt and — Margaret. The
poised bow fell, a merry tune rang out, and Rich
ard Hunt bowed low to his little partner, who, smil
ing and blushing, dropped him the daintiest of
graceful courtesies. Then the miracle came to
pass. Rage straightway shook Chad's soul — shook
it as a terrier shakes a rat — and the look on his
face and in his eyes went back a thousand years.
And Richard Hunt, looking up, saw the strange
spectacle, understood, and did not even smile. On
the contrary, he went at once after the dance to
speak to the boy and got for his answer fierce,

141

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

white, staring silence and a clinched fist, that was
almost ready to strike. Something else that wTas
strange happened then to Chad. He felt a very
firm and a very gentle hand on his shoulder, his
own eyes dropped before the piercing dark eyes and
kindly smile above him, and, a moment later, he
was shyly making his way with Richard Hunt
toward Margaret.

It was on Thursday of the following week that
Dan told him the two rams were once more tied in
his father's stable. On Saturday, then, they would
have the tournament. To get Mammy's help,
Margaret had to tell the plan to her, and Mammy
stormed against the little girl taking part in any
such undignified proceedings, but imperious Mar
garet forced her to keep silent and help make
sashes and a tent for each of the two knights.
Chad would be the ''Knight of the Cumberland"
and Dan the "Knight of the Bluegrass." Snow
ball was to be Dan's squire and black Rufus,
Harry's body-servant, would be squire to Chad.
Harry was King John, the other pickaninnies would
be varlets and vassals, and outraged Uncle Tom,
so Dan told him, would, "by the beard of Abra
ham," have to be a " Dog of an Unbeliever." Mar
garet was undecided whether she would play Re
becca, or the "Queen of Love and Beauty," unti)
Chad told her she ought to be both, so both she de
cided to be. So all was done — the spears fashioned

142

A TOURNAMENT

of ash, the helmets battered from tin buckets, col
ors knotted for the spears, and shields made of
sheepskins. On the stiles sat Harry and Margaret
in royal state under a canopy of calico, with indig
nant Mammy behind them. At each end of the
stable-lot was a tent of cotton, and before one stood
Snowball and before the other black Rufus, each
with his master's spear and shield. Near Harry
stood Sam, the trumpeter, with a fox-horn to sound
the charge, and four black vassals stood at the sta
ble-door to lead the chargers forth.

Near the stiles were the neighbors' children, and
around the barn was gathered every darky on the
place, while behind the hedge and peeping through
it were the Major and the General, the one chuck
ling, the other smiling indulgently.

The stable-doors opened, the four vassals disap
peared and came forth, each pair leading a ram,
one covered with red calico, the other with blue
cotton, and each with a bandanna handkerchief
around his neck. Each knight stepped forth from
his tent, as his charger was dragged — ba-a-ing and
butting — toward it, and, grasping his spear and
shield and setting his helmet on more firmly, got
astride gravely — each squire and vassal solemn,
for the King had given command that no varlet
must show unseemly mirth. Behind the hedge,
the Major was holding his hands to his sider and
the General was getting grave. It had jus/ £>c-

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

curred to him that those rams would make for
each other like tornadoes, and he said so.

"Of course they will," chuckled the Major.
" Don't you suppose they know that ? That's what
they're doing it for. Bless my soul!"

The King waved his hand just then and his black
trumpeter tooted the charge.

"Leggo!" said Chad.

"Leggo!" said Dan.

And Snowball and Rufus let go, and each ram
ran a few paces and stopped with his head close
to the ground, while each knight brandished his
spear and dug with his spurred heels. One charger
gave a ba-a! The other heard, raised his head,
saw his enemy, and ba-a-ed an answering challenge.
Then they started for each other with a rush that
brought a sudden fearsome silence, quickly fol
lowed by a babel of excited cries, in which
Mammy's was loudest and most indignant. Dan,
nearly unseated, had dropped his lance to catch
hold of his charger's wool, and Chad had gallantly
lowered the point of his, because his antagonist
was unarmed. But the temper of rams and not of
knights was in that fight now and they came to
gether with a shock that banged the two knights
into each other and hurled both violently to the
ground. General Dean and the Major ran anx
iously from the hedge. Several negro men rushed
for the rams, who were charging and butting like

144

A TOURNAMENT

demons. Harry tumbled from the canopy in a
most unkingly fashion. Margaret cried and Mam
my wrung her hands. Chad rose dizzily, but Dan
lay still. Chad's elbow had struck him in the tem
ple and knocked him unconscious.

The servants were thrown into an uproar when
Dan was carried back into the house. Harry was
white and almost in tears.

"I did it; father, I did it," he said, at the foot
of the steps.

"No," said Chad, sturdily, "I done it myself."

Margaret heard and ran from the hallway and
down the steps, brushing away her tears with both
hands.

"Yes, you did — you did" she cried. "I hate
you."

"Why, Margaret," said General Dean.

Chad, startled and stung, turned without a word
and, unnoticed by the rest, made his way slowlv
across the fields.

XII

BACK TO KINGDOM COME

TT was the tournament that, at last, loosed
Mammy's tongue. She was savage in her de
nunciation of Chad to Mrs. Dean — so savage and
in such plain language that her mistress checked
her sharply, but not before Margaret had heard,
though the little girl, with an awed face, slipped
quietly out of the room into the yard, while Harry
stood in the doorway, troubled and silent.

"Don't let me hear you speak that way again,
Mammy," said Mrs. Dean, so sternly that the old
woman swept out of the room in high dudgeon.
And yet she told her husband of Mammy's charge.

"I am rather surprised at Major Buford."

"Perhaps he doesn't know," said the General.
"Perhaps it isn't true."

"Nobody knows anything about the boy."

"That's true."

"Well, I cannot have my children associating
with a waif."

"He seems like a nice boy."

" He uses extraordinary language. I cannot have
him teaching my children mischief. Why I believe

146

BACK TO KINGDOM COME

Margaret is really fond of him. I know Harry
and Dan are." The General looked thoughtful.

"I will speak to Major Buford about him," he
said; and he did — no little to that gentleman's con
fusion — though he defended Chad stanchly — and
the two friends parted with some heat.

Thereafter, the world changed for Chad, for i
there any older and truer story than that Evil has
wings, while Good goes a plodding way ? Chad
felt the change, in the negroes, in the sneering
overseer, and could not understand. The rumor
reached Miss Lucy's ears and she and the Major
had a spirited discussion that rather staggered
Chad's kind-hearted companion. It reached the
school, and a black-haired youngster, named
Georgie Forbes, who had long been one of Mar
garet's abject slaves, and who hated Chad, brought
out the terrible charge in the presence of a dozen
school-children at noon-recess one day. It had been
no insult in the mountains, but Chad, dazed though
he was, knew it was meant for an insult, and his
hard fist shot out promptly, landing in his enemy's
chin and bringing him bawling to the earth. Oth
ers gave out the cry then, and the boy fought right
and left like a demon. Dan stood sullenly near,
taking no part, and Harry, while he stopped the
unequal fight, turned away from Chad coldly, call
ing Margaret, who had run up toward them, away
at the same time, and Chad's three friends turned

H7

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

from him then and there, while the boy, forgetting
all else, stood watching them with dumb wonder
and pain. The school-bell clanged, but Chad stood
still — with his heart wellnigh breaking. In a few
minutes the last pupil had disappeared through the
school-room door, and Chad stood under a great
elm — alone. But only a moment, for he turned
quickly away, the tears starting to his eyes, walked
rapidly through the woods, climbed the worm
fence beyond, and dropped, sobbing, in the thick
bluegrass.

An hour later he was walking swiftly through
the fields toward the old brick house that had shel
tered him. He was very quiet at supper that night,
and after Miss Lucy had gone to bed and he and
the Major were seated before the fire, he was so
quiet that the Major looked at him anxiously.

"What's the matter, Chad ? Are you sick ?"

"Nothin'— no, sir."

But the Major was uneasy, and when he rose to
go to bed, he went over and put his hand on the
boy's head.

"Chad," he said, "if you hear of people saying
mean things about you, you mustn't pay any atten
tion to them."

"No, sir."

"You're a good boy, and I want you to live here
with me. Good-night, Chad," he added, affection-

148

BACK TO KINGDOM COME

ately. Chad nearly broke down, but he steadied
himself.

"Good-by, Major," he said, brokenly. "I'm
obleeged to you."

" Good-by ? " repeated the Major. " Why-

" Good-night, 'I mean," stammered Chad.

The Major stood inside his own 'door, listening
to the boy's slow steps up the second flight. "I'm
gettin' to love that boy," he said, wonderingly—
"An' I'm damned if people who talk about him
don't have me to reckon with" — and the Major
shook his head from side to side. Several times he
thought he could hear the boy moving around in
the room above him, and while he was wondering
why the lad did not go to bed, he fell asleep.

Chad was moving around. First, by the light
of a candle, he laboriously dug out a short letter to
the Major — scalding it with tears. Then he took
off his clothes and got his old mountain-suit out of
the closet — moccasins and all — and put them on.
Very carefully he folded the pretty clothes he had
taken off — just as Miss Lucy had taught him — and
laid them on the bed. Then he picked up his old
rifle in one hand and his old coonskin cap in the
other, blew out the candle, slipped noiselessly down
the stairs in his moccasined feet, out the unbolted
door and into the starlit night. From the pike
fence he turned once to look back to the dark, si-

149

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

lent house amid the dark trees. Then he sprang
down and started through the fields — his face set
toward the mountains.

It so happened that mischance led General Dean
to go over to see Major Buford about Chad next
morning. The Major listened patiently- — or tried
ineffectively to listen — and when the General was
through, he burst out with a vehemence that
shocked and amazed his old friend.

"Damn those niggers!" he cried, in a tone that
seemed to include the General in his condemna
tion, "that boy is the best boy I ever knew. I be
lieve he is my own blood, he looks like that picture
there" — pointing to the old portrait — "and if he
is what I believe he is, by - — , sir, he gets
this farm and all I have. Do you understand
that?"

"I believe he told you what he was."

"He did — but I don't believe he knows, and,
anyhow, whatever he is, he shall have a home under
this roof as long as he lives."

The General rose suddenly — stiffly.

"He must never darken my door again."

"Very well." The Major made a gesture which
plainly said, "In that event, you are darkening mine
too long," and the General rose, slowly descended
the steps of the portico, and turned:

"Do you really mean, Cal, that you are going to

1.50

let a little brat that you picked up in the road only
yesterday stand between you and me ?"

The Major softened.

"Look here," he said, whisking a sheet of paper
from his coat-pocket. While the General read
Chad's scrawl, the Major watched his face.

"He's gone, by - — . A hint was enough for
him. If he isn't the son of a gentleman, then I'm
not, nor you."

"Cal," said the General, holding out his hand,
"we'll talk this over again."

The bees buzzed around the honeysuckles that
clambered over the porch. A crow flew overhead.
The sound of a crying child came around the cor
ner of the house from the quarters, and the Gen
eral's footsteps died on the gravel-walk, but the
Major heard them not. Mechanically he watched
the General mount his black horse and canter
toward the pike gate. The overseer called to him
from the stable, but the Major dropped his eyes to
the scrawl in his hand, and when Miss Lucy came
out he silently handed it to her.

"I reckon you know what folks is a-sayin* about
me. I tol' you myself. But I didn't know hit wus
any harm, and anyways hit ain't my fault, I reckon,
an' I don't see how folks can blame me. But I
don' want nobody who don' want me. An' I'm
leavin' 'cause I don't want to bother you. I never
bring nothing but trouble nohow an' I'm goin' back

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

to the mountains. Tell Miss Lucy good-by. She
was mighty good to me, but I know she didn't like
me. I left the hoss for you. If you don't have no
use fer the saddle, I wish you'd give hit to Harry,
'cause he tuk up fer me at school when I was fight-
in', though he wouldn't speak to me no more. I'm
mighty sorry to leave you. I'm obleeged to you
'cause you wus so good to me an' I'm goin' to see
you agin some day, if I can. Good-by/'

"Left that damned old mare to pay for his
clothes and his board and his schooling," muttered
the Major. " By the gods" — he rose suddenly and
strode away — " I beg your pardon, Lucy."

A tear was running down each of Miss Lucy's
faded cheeks.

Dawn that morning found Chad springing from
a bed in a haystack — ten miles from Lexington.
By dusk that day, he was on the edge of the Blue-
grass and that night he stayed at a farm-house, go
ing in boldly, for he had learned now that the way
farer was as welcome in a Bluegrass farm-house as
in a log-cabin in the mountains. Higher and higher
grew the green swelling slopes, until, climbing one
about noon next day, he saw the blue foothills of
the Cumberland through the clear air — and he
stopped and looked long, breathing hard from pure
ecstasy. The plain-dweller never knows the fierce
home hunger that the mountain-born have for hills.

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BACK TO KINGDOM COME

Besides, beyond those blue summits were the
Turners and the school-master and Jack, waiting
for him, and he forgot hunger and weariness as
he trod on eagerly toward them. That night, he
stayed in a mountain-cabin, and while the contrast
of the dark room, the crowding children, the slov
enly dress, and the coarse food was strangely dis
agreeable, along with the strange new shock came
the thrill that all this meant hills and home. It
was about three o'clock of the fourth day that,
tramping up the Kentucky River, he came upon a
long, even stretch of smooth water, from the upper
end of which two black bowlders were thrust out
of the stream, and with a keener thrill he realized
that he was nearing home. He recalled seeing
those rocks as the raft swept down the river, and
the old Squire had said that they were named after
oxen—" Billy and Buck." Opposite the rocks he
met a mountaineer.

"How fer is it to Uncle Joel Turner's ?"

"A leetle the rise o' six miles, I reckon."

The boy was faint with weariness, and those six

miles seemed a dozen. Idea of distance is vague

among the mountaineers, and two hours of weary

travel followed, yet nothing that he recognized was

in sight. Once a bend of the river looked familiar,

but when he neared it, the road turned steeply from

the river and over a high bluff, and the boy started

up with a groan. He meant to reach the summit

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

before he stopped to rest, but in sheer pain, he
dropped a dozen paces from the top and lay
with his tongue, like a dog's, between his
lips.

The top was warm, but a chill was rising from
the fast-darkening shadows below him. The rim
of the sun was about to brush the green tip of a
mountain across the river, and the boy rose in a
minute, dragged himself on to the point where,
rounding a big rock, he dropped again with a
thumping heart and a reeling brain. There it was
— old Joel's cabin in the pretty valley below — old
Joel's cabin — home! Smoke was rising from the
chimney, and that far away it seemed that Chad
could smell frying bacon. There was the old barn,
and he could make out one of the boys feeding
stock and another chopping wood — was that the
school-master ? There was the huge form of old
Joel at the fence talking with a neighbor. He was
gesticulating as though angry, and the old mother
came to the door as the neighbor moved away with
a shuffling gait that the boy knew belonged to the
Dillon breed. Where was Jack? Jack! Chad
sprang to his feet and went down the hill on a run.
He climbed the orchard fence, breaking the top-
rail in his eagerness, and as he neared the house, he
gave a shrill yell. A scarlet figure flashed like a
flame out of the door, with an answering cry, and
the Turners followed:

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BACK TO KINGDOM COME

"Why, boy," roared old Joel. "Mammy, hit's
Chad!"

Dolph dropped an armful of feed. The man
with the axe left it stuck in a log, and each man
shouted:

"Chad!"

The mountaineers are an undemonstrative race,
but Mother Turner took the boy in her arms and
the rest crowded around, slapping him on the back
and all asking questions at once — Dolph and Rube
and Tom. Yes, and there was the school-master —
every face was almost tender with love for the boy.
But where was Jack ?

"Where's — where's Jack?" said Chad.

Old Joel changed face — looking angry; the rest
were grave. Only the old mother spoke:

"Jack's all right."

"Oh," said Chad, but he looked anxious.

Melissa inside heard. He had not asked for
her, and with the sudden choking of a nameless
fear she sprang out the door to be caught by the
school-master, who had gone around the corner to
look for her.

"Lemme go," she said, fiercely, breaking his
hold and darting away, but stopping, when she saw
Chad in the doorway, looking at her with a shy
smile.

"Howdye, Melissa!"

The girl stared at him mildly and made no an-

155

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

swer, and a wave of shame and confusion swept
over the boy as his thoughts flashed back to a little
girl in a black cap and on a black pony, and he
stood reddening and helpless. There was a halloo
at the gate. It was old Squire Middleton and the
circuit-rider, and old Joel went toward them with
a darkening face.

"Why, hello, Chad," the Squire said. "You
back again ?"

He turned to Joel.

"Look hyeh, Joel. Thar hain't no use o' your
buckin' agin yo' neighbors and harborin' a sheep-
killin' dog." Chad started and looked from one
face to another — slowly but surely making out the
truth.

"You never seed the dawg afore last spring.
You don't know that he hain't a sheep-killer."

"It's a lie — a lie," Chad cried, hotly, but the
school-master stopped him.

"Hush, Chad," he said, and he took the boy in
side and told him Jack was in trouble. A Dillon
sheep had been found dead on a hill-side. Daws
Dillon had come upon Jack leaping out of the
pasture, and Jack had come home with his muzzle
bloody. Even with this overwhelming evidence,
old Joel stanchly refused to believe the dog was
guilty and ordered old man Dillon off the place.
A neighbor had come over, then another, and an
other, until old Joel got livid with rage.

BACK TO KINGDOM COME

"That dawg mought eat a dead sheep but he
never would kill a live one, and if you kill him, by

— , you've got to kill me fust."

Now there is no more unneighborly or unchris
tian act for a farmer than to harbor a sheep-killing
dog. So the old Squire and the circuit-rider had
come over to show Joel the grievous error of his
selfish, obstinate course, and, so far, old Joel had
refused to be shown. All of his sons sturdily up
held him and little Melissa fiercely — the old mother
and the school-master alone remaining quiet and
taking no part in the dissension.

"Have they got Jack ?"

"No, Chad," said the school-master. "He's
safe — tied up in the stable." Chad started out,
and no one followed but Melissa. A joyous bark
that was almost human came from the stable as
Chad approached, for the dog must have known
the sound of his master's footsteps, and when Chad
threw open the door, Jack sprang the length of his
tether to meet him and was jerked to his back.
Again and again he sprang, barking, as though be
side himself, while Chad stood at the door, look
ing sorrowfully at him.

"Down, Jack!" he said sternly, and Jack
dropped obediently, looking straight at his master
with honest eyes and whimpering like a child.

"Jack," said Chad, "did you kill that sheep ?"
This was all strange conduct for his little master,

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

and Jack looked wondering and dazed, but his eyes
never wavered or blinked. Chad could not long
stand those honest eyes.

"No," he said, fiercely — "no, little doggie, no
— no!" And Chad dropped on his knees and took
Jack in his arms and hugged him to his breast.

158

XIII

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

T) Y degrees the whole story was told Chad that
night. Now and then the Turners would
ask him about his stay in the Bluegrass, but the boy
would answer as briefly as possible and come back
to Jack. Before going to bed, Chad said he would
bring Jack into the house:

"Somebody might pizen him," he explained,
and when he came back, he startled the circle about
the fire:

" Whar's Whizzer ? " he asked, sharply. " Who's
seen Whizzer ?"

Then it developed that no one had seen the Dil
lon dog — since the day before the sheep was found
dead near a ravine at the foot of the mountain in a
back pasture. Late that afternoon Melissa had
found Whizzer in that very pasture when she
was driving old Betsy, the brindle, home at milk-
ing-time. Since then, no one of the Turners had
seen the Dillon dog. That, however, did not prove
that Whizzer was not at home. And yet,

"I'd like to know whar Whizzer is now!" said
Chad, and, after, at old Joel's command, he had

159

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

tied Jack to a bedpost — an outrage that puzzled
the dog sorely — the boy threshed his bed for an
hour — trying to think out a defence for Jack and
wondering if Whizzer might not have been con
cerned in the death of the sheep.

It is hardly possible that what happened, next
day, could happen anywhere except among simple
people of the hills. Briefly, the old Squire and the
circuit-rider had brought old Joel to the point of
saying, the night before, that he would give Jack
up to be killed, if he could be proven guilty. But
the old hunter cried with an oath:

"You've got to prove him guilty." And there
upon the Squire said he would give Jack every
chance that he would give a man — he would try
him; each side could bring in witnesses; old Joel
could have a lawyer if he wished, and Jack's case
would go before a jury. If pronounced innocent,
Jack should go free: if guilty — then the dog
should be handed over to the sheriff, to be shot
at sundown. Joel agreed.

It was a strange procession that left the gate of
the Turner cabin next morning. Old Joel led the
way, mounted, with "ole Sal," his rifle, across his
saddle-bow. Behind him came Mother Turner
and Melissa on foot and Chad with his rifle over
his left shoulder, and leading Jack by a string with
his right hand. Behind them slouched Tall Tom
with his rifle and Dolph and Rube, each with a

1 60

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

huge old-fashioned horse-pistol swinging from his
right hip. Last strode the school-master. The
cabin was left deserted — the hospitable door held
closed by a deer-skin latch caught to a wooden pin
outside.

It was a strange humiliation to Jack thus to be
led along the highway, like a criminal going to the
gallows. There was no power on earth that could
have moved him from Chad's side, other than the
boy's own command — but old Joel had sworn that
he would keep the dog tied and the old hunter al
ways kept his word. He had sworn, too, that Jack
should have a fair trial. Therefore, the guns — and
the school-master walked with his hands behind
him and his eyes on the ground: he feared trouble.

Half a mile up the river and to one side of the
road, a space of some thirty feet square had been
cut into a patch of rhododendron and filled with
rude benches of slabs — in front of which was a
rough platform on which sat a home-made, cane-
bottomed chair. Except for the opening from the
road, the space was walled with a circle of living
green through which the sun dappled the benches
with quivering disks of yellow light — and, high
above, great poplars and oaks arched their mighty
heads. It was an open-air " meeting-house " where
the circuit-rider preached during his summer cir
cuit and there the trial was to take place.

Already a crowd was idling, whittling, gossiping
161

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

in the road, when the Turner cavalcade came in
sight — and for ten miles up and down the river
people were coming in for the trial.

"Mornin', gentlemen," said old Joel, gravely.

"Mornin'," answered several, among whom was
the Squire, who eyed Joel's gun and the guns com
ing up the road.

"Squirrel-huntin' ?" he asked and, as the old
hunter did not answer, he added, sharply:

"Air you afeerd, Joel Turner, that you ain't
a-goin' to git justice from me?"

"I don't keer whar it comes from," said Joel,
grimly — "but I'm a-goin' to have it."

It was plain that the old man not only was mak
ing no plea for sympathy, but was alienating the lit
tle he had: and what he had was very little — for
who but a lover of dogs can give full sympathy to
his kind ? And, then, Jack was believed to be
guilty. It was curious to see how each Dillon
shrank unconsciously as the Turners gathered — all
but Jerry, one of the giant twins. He always
stood his ground — fearing not man, nor dog—
nor devil.

Ten minutes later, the Squire took his seat on
the platform, while the circuit-rider squatted down
beside him. The crowd, men and women and chil
dren, took the rough benches. To one side sat and
stood the Dillons, old Tad and little Tad, Daws,

162

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

Nance, and others of the tribe. Straight in front
of the Squire gathered the Turners about Melissa
and Chad and Jack as a centre — with Jack squat
ted on his haunches foremost of all, facing the
Squire with grave dignity and looking at none
else save, occasionally, the old hunter or his little
master.

To the right stood the sheriff with his rifle, and
on the outskirts hung the school-master. Quickly
the old Squire chose a jury — giving old Joel the
opportunity to object as he called each man's name.
Old Joel objected to none, for every man called, he
knew, was more friendly to him than to the Dil
lons : and old Tad Dillon raised no word of pro
test, for he knew his case was clear. Then began
the trial, and any soul that was there would have
shuddered could he have known how that trial was
to divide neighbor against neighbor, and mean
death and bloodshed for half a century after the
trial itself was long forgotten.

The first witness, old Tad — long, lean, stoop
ing, crafty — had seen the sheep rushing wildly up
the hill-side " 'bout crack o' day," he said, and had
sent Daws up to see what the matter was. Daws
had shouted back:

"That damned Turner dog has killed one o* our
sheep. Thar he comes now. Kill him!" And old
Tad had rushed in-doors for his rifle and had taken
a shot at Jack as he leaped into the road and looed

163

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

for home. Just then a stern, thick little voice rose
from behind Jack:

" Hit was a God's blessin' fer you that you didn't
hit him."

The Squire glared down at the boy and old Joel
said, kindly:

"Hush, Chad."

Old Dillon had then gone down to the Turners
and asked them to kill the dog, but old Joel had re
fused.

"Whar was Whizzer?" Chad asked, sharply.

"You can't axe that question," said the Squire.
" Hit's er-er-irrelevant."

Daws came next. When he reached the fence
upon the hill-side he could see the sheep lying still
on the ground. As he was climbing over, the Tur
ner dog jumped the fence and Daws saw blood on
his muzzle.

"How close was you to him ?" asked the Squire.

" 'Bout twenty feet," said Daws.

"Humph!" said old Joel.

"Whar was Whizzer?" Again the old Squire
glared down at Chad.

" Don't you axe that question again, boy. Didn't
I tell you hit was irrelevant ?"

"What's irrelevant?" the boy asked, bluntly.

The Squire hesitated. "Why — why, hit ain't
got nothin' to do with the case."
3 "Hit ain't?" shouted Chad.

164.

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

"Joel," said the Squire, testily, "ef you don't
keep that boy still, I'll fine him fer contempt o'
court."

Joel laughed, but he put his heavy hand on the
boy's shoulder. Little Tad Dillon and Nance and
the Dillon mother had all seen Jack running down
the road. There was no doubt but that it was the
Turner dog. And with this clear case against poor
Jack, the Dillons rested. And what else could the
Turners do but establish Jack's character and put
in a plea of mercy — a useless plea, old Joel knew
— for a first offence ? Jack was the best dog old
Joel had ever known, and the old man told won
derful tales of the dog's intelligence and kindness
and how one night Jack had guarded a stray lamb
that had broken its leg — until daybreak — and he
had been led to the dog and the sheep by Jack's
barking for help. The Turner boys confirmed this
story, though it was received with incredulity.

How could a dog that would guard one lone
helpless lamb all night long take the life of an
other ?

There was no witness that had aught but kind
words to say of the dog or aught but wonder that
he should have done this thing — even back to the
cattle-dealer who had given him to Chad. For at
that time the dealer said — so testified Chad, no ob
jection being raised to hearsay evidence — that Jack
was the best dog he ever knew. That was all the

165

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Turners or anybody could do or say, and the old
Squire was about to turn the case over to the jury
when Chad rose:

"Squire," he said and his voice trembled,
"Jack's my dog. I lived with him night an' day
for 'bout three years an' I want to axe some ques
tions."

He turned to Daws:

" I want to axe you ef thar was any blood around
that sheep."

'Thar was a great big pool o' blood," said
Daws, indignantly. Chad looked at the Squire.

"Well, a sheep-killin' dog don't leave no great
big pool o' blood, Squire, with the fust one he kills!
He sucks it!" Several men nodded their heads.

"Squire! The fust time I come over these
mountains, the fust people I seed was these Dil
lons — an' Whizzer. They sicked Whizzer on
Jack hyeh and Jack whooped him. Then Tad
thar jumped me and I whooped him." (The Tur
ner boys were nodding confirmation.) " Sence that
time they've hated Jack an' they've hated me and
they hate the Turners partly fer takin' keer o' me.
Now you said somethin' I axed just now was ir
relevant, but I tell you, Squire, I know a sheep-
killin' dawg, and jes' as I know Jack ain't, I know
the Dillon dawg naturely is, and I tell you, if the
Dillons' dawg killed that sheep and they could put
it on Jack — they'd do it. They'd do it — Squire.

166

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

an' I tell you, you — ortern't — to let — that — sheriff
— thar — shoot my — dog— until the Dillons an
swers what I axed— " the boy's passionate cry rang
against the green walls and out the opening and
across the river —

"Char's Whizzer?"

The boy startled the crowd and the old Squire
himself, who turned quickly to the Dillons.

"Well, wharisWhizzer?"

Nobody answered.

"He ain't been seen, Squire, sence the evenin'
afore the night o' the killin'!" Chad's statement
seemed to be true. Not a voice contradicted.

"An' I want to know if Daws seed signs o' killin'
on Jack's head when he jumped the fence, why
them same signs didn't show when he got home."

Poor Chad! Here old Tad Dillon raised his
hand.

"Axe the Turners, Squire/' he said, and as the
school-master on the outskirts shrank, as though he
meant to leave the crowd, the old man's quick eye
caught the movement and he added:

"Axe the school-teacher!"

Every eye turned with the Squire's to the mas
ter, whose face was strangely serious straightway.

" Did you see any signs on the dawg when he got
home ?" The gaunt man hesitated with one swift
glance at the boy, who almost paled in answer.

"Why," said the school-master, and again he

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

hesitated, but old Joel, in a voice that was without
hope, encouraged him:

"Go on!"

" What wus they?"

"Jack had blood on his muzzle, and a little
strand o' wool behind one ear."

There was no hope against that testimony. Me
lissa broke away from her mother and ran out to
the road — weeping. Chad dropped with a sob to
his bench and put his arms around the dog: then
he rose up and walked out the opening while Jack
leaped against his leash to follow. The school
master put out his hand to stop him, but the boy
struck it aside without looking up and went on: he
could not stay to see Jack condemned. He knew
what the verdict would be, and in twenty minutes
the jury gave it, without leaving their seats.

"Guilty!"

The Sheriff came forward. He knew Jack and
Jack knew him, and wagged his tail and whimpered
up at him when he took the leash.

"Well, by - — , this is a job I don't like, an'
I'm damned ef I'm agoin' to shoot this dawg afore
he knows what I'm shootin' him fer. I'm goin' to
show him that sheep fust. Whar's that sheep,
Daws?"

Daws led the way down the road, over the fence,
across the meadow, and up the hill-side where lay
the slain sheep. Chad and Melissa saw them com-

168

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

ing — the whole crowd — before they themselves
were seen. For a minute the boy watched them.
They were going to kill Jack where the Dillons
said he had killed the sheep, and the boy jumped
to his feet and ran up the hill a little way and dis
appeared in the bushes, that he might not hear
Jack's death-shot, while Melissa sat where she was,
watching the crowd come on. Daws was at the
foot of the hill, and she saw him make a gesture
toward her, and then the Sheriff came on with Jack
— over the fence, past her, the Sheriff saying,
kindly, ''Howdy, Melissa. I shorely am sorry to
have to kill Jack," and on to the dead sheep, which
lay fifty yards beyond. If the Sheriff expected
Jack to drop head and tail and look mean he was
greatly mistaken. Jack neither hung back nor
sniffed at the carcass. Instead he put one fore foot
on it and with the other bent in the air, looked
without shame into the Sheriff's eyes — as much as
to say:

"Yes, this is a wicked and shameful thing, but
what have I got to do with it ? Why are you bring
ing me here ?"

The Sheriff came back greatly puzzled and
shaking his head. Passing Melissa, he stopped to
let the unhappy little girl give Jack a last pat, and
it was there that Jack suddenly caught scent of
Chad's tracks. With one mighty bound the dog
snatched the rawhide string from the careless

169

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Sheriff's hand, and in a moment, with his nose to
the ground, was speeding up toward the woods.
With a startled yell and a frightful oath the Sheriff
threw his rifle to his shoulder, but the little girl

7 O

sprang up and caught the barrel with both hands,
shaking it fiercely up and down and hieing Jack on
with shriek after shriek. A minute later Jack had
disappeared in the bushes, Melissa wras running
like the wind down the hill toward home, while the
whole crowd in the meadow was rushing up toward
the Sheriff, led by the Dillons, who were yelling
and swearing like madmen. Above them, the
crestfallen Sheriff waited. The Dillons crowded
angrily about him, gesticulating and threatening,
while he told his story. But nothing could be done
— nothing. They did not know that Chad was up
in the woods or they would have gone in search of
him — knowing that when they found him they
would find Jack — but to look for Jack now would
be like searching for a needle in a hay-stack. There
was nothing to do, then, but to wait for Jack to
come home, which he would surely do — to get to
Chad — and it was while old Joel was promising
that the dog should be surrendered to the Sheriff
that little Tad Dillon gave an excited shriek.
"Lookupthar!"

And up there at the edge of the wood was Chad
standing and, at his feet, Jack sitting on his

170

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

haunches, with his tongue out and looking as
though nothing had happened or could ever hap
pen to Chad or to him.

"Come up hyeh," shouted Chad.

"You come down hyeh," shouted the Sheriff,
angrily. So Chad came down, with Jack trotting
after him. Chad had cut off the rawhide string,
but the Sheriff caught Jack by the nape of the
neck.

"You won't git away from me agin, I reckon."

"Well, I reckon you ain't goin' to shoot him,"
said Chad. "Leggo that dawg."

"Don't be a fool, Jim," said old Joel. "The
dawg ain't goin' to leave the boy." The Sheriff
let go.

"Come on up hyeh," said Chad. "I got some-
thin' to show ye."

The boy turned with such certainty that with
out a word Squire, Sheriff, Turners, Dillons, and
spectators followed. As they approached a deep
ravine the boy pointed to the ground where were
evidences of some fierce struggle — the dirt thrown
up, and several small stones scattered about with
faded stains of blood on them.

"Wait hyeh!" said the boy, and he slid down
the ravine and appeared again dragging something
after him. Tall Tom ran down to help him and the
two threw before the astonished crowd the body
of a black and white dog.

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Now I reckon you know whar Whizzer is,"
panted Chad vindictively to the Dillons.

"Well, what of it?" snapped Daws.

"Oh, nothin'," said the boy with fine sarcasm.
"Only Whizzer killed that sheep and Jack killed
Whizzer." From every Dillon throat came a
scornful grunt.

"Oh, I reckon so," said Chad, easily. "Look
thar!" He lifted the dead dog's head, and pointed
at the strands of wool between his teeth. He
turned it over, showing the deadly grip in the
throat and close to the jaws, that had choked the
life from Whizzer — Jack's own grip.

"Ef you will jes' rickollect, Jack had that same
grip the time afore — when I pulled him off o'
Whizzer."

"By , that's so," said Tall Tom, and Dolph

and Rube echoed him amid a dozen voices, for
not only old Joel, but many of his neighbors knew
Jack's method of fighting, which had made him a
victor up and down the length of Kingdom Come.

There was little doubt that the boy was right-
that Jack had come on Whizzer killing the sheep,
and had caught him at the edge of the ravine,
where the two had fought, rolling down and set
tling the old feud between them in the darkness at
the bottom. And up there on the hill-side, the
jury that pronounced Jack guilty pronounced him
innocent, and, as the Turners started joyfully

172

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

down the hill, the sun that was to have sunk on
Jack stiff in death sank on Jack frisking before
them — home.

And yet another wonder was in store for Chad.
A strange horse with a strange saddle was hitched
to the Turner fence; beside it was an old mare with
a boy's saddle, and as Chad came through the gate
a familiar voice called him cheerily by name. On
the porch sat Major Buford.

XIV

HE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

' I AHE quivering heat of August was giving way
and the golden peace of autumn was spread
ing through the land. The breath of mountain
woods by day was as cool as the breath of valleys
at night. In the mountains, boy and girl were
leaving school for work in the fields, and from the
Cumberland foothills to the Ohio, boy and girl
were leaving happy holidays for school. Along a
rough, rocky road and down a shining river, now
sunk to deep pools with trickling riffles between —
for a drouth was on the land — rode a tall, gaunt
man on an old brown mare that switched with her
tail now and then at a long-legged, rough-haired
colt stumbling awkwardly behind. Where the road
turned from the river and up the mountain, the
man did a peculiar thing, for there, in that lonely
wilderness, he stopped, dismounted, tied the reins
to an overhanging branch and, leaving mare and
colt behind, strode up the mountain, on and on, dis
appearing over the top. Half an hour later, a
sturdy youth hove in sight, trudging along the same
road with his cap in his hand, a long rifle over one

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THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

shoulder and a dog trotting at his heels. Now and
then the boy would look back and scold the dog and
the dog would drop his muzzle with shame, until
the boy stooped to pat him on the head, when he
would leap frisking before him, until another af
fectionate scolding was due. The old mare turned
her head when she heard them coming, and nick
ered. Without a moment's hesitation the lad un
tied her, mounted and rode up the mountain. For
two days the man and the boy had been " riding and
tying," as this way of travel for two men and one
horse is still known in the hills, and over the moun
tain, they were to come together for the night. At
the foot of the spur on the other side, boy and dog
came upon the tall man sprawled at full length
across a moss-covered bowlder. The dog dropped
behind, but the man's quick eye caught him:

"Where'd that dog come from, Chad ?" Jack
put his belly to the earth and crawled slowly for
ward — penitent, but determined.

"He broke loose, I reckon. He come tearin' up
behind me 'bout an hour ago, like a house afire.
Let him go." Caleb Hazel frowned.

"I told you, Chad, that we'd have no place to
keep him."

"Well, we can send him home as easy from up
thar as we can from hyeh — let him go."

"All right!" Chad understood not a whit bet
ter than the dog; for Jack leaped to his feet and

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

jumped around the school-master, trying to lick his
hands, but the school-master was absorbed and
would none of him. There, the mountain-path
turned into a wagon-road and the school-master
pointed with one ringer.

"Do you know what that is, Chad ?"

"No, sir." Chad said "sir" to the school-mas
ter now.

"Well, that's" — the school-master paused to
give his words effect — "that's the old Wilderness
Road."

Ah, did he not know the old, old Wilderness
Road! The boy gripped his rifle unconsciously, as
though there might yet be a savage lying in am
bush in some covert of rhododendron close by.
And, as they trudged ahead, side by side now, for
it was growing late, the school-master told him, as
often before, the story of that road and the pio
neers who had trod it — the hunters, adventurers,
emigrants, fine ladies and fine gentlemen who had
stained it with their blood; and how that road had
broadened into the mighty way for a great civiliza
tion from sea to sea. The lad could see it all, as he
listened, wishing that he had lived in those stirring
days, never dreaming in how little was he of differ
ent mould from the stout-hearted pioneers who beat
out the path with their moccasined feet; how little
less full of danger were his own days to be; how lit
tle different had been his own life, and was his our-

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THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

pose now — how little different after all was the
bourn to which his own restless feet were bearing
him.

Chad had changed a good deal since that night
after Jack's trial, when the kind-hearted old Ma
jor had turned up at Joel's cabin to take him back
to the Bluegrass. He was taller, broader at shoul
der, deeper of chest; his mouth and eyes were
prematurely grave from much brooding and looked
a little defiant, as though the boy expected hostility
from the world and was prepared to meet it, but
there was no bitterness in them, and luminous about
the lad was the old atmosphere of brave, sunny
cheer and simple self-trust that won people to him.

The Major and old Joel had talked late that
night after Jack's trial. The Major had come
down to find out who Chad was, if possible, and to
take him back home, no matter who he might be.
The old hunter looked long into the fire.

"Co'se I know hit 'ud be better fer Chad, but,
Lawd, how we'd hate to give him up. Still, I
reckon I'll have to let him go, but I can stand hit
better, if you can git him to leave Jack hyeh." The
Major smiled. Did old Joel know where Nathan
Cherry lived ? The old hunter did. Nathan was
a "damned old skinflint who lived across the moun
tain on Stone Creek — who stole other folks' farms
and if he knew anything about Chad the old hunt
er would squeeze it out of his throat; and if old

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Nathan, learning where Chad now was, tried to
pester him he would break every bone in the skin
flint's body." So the Major and old Joel rode over
next day to see Nathan, and Nathan with his shift
ing eyes told them Chad's story in a high, cracked
voice that, recalling Chad's imitation of it, made
the Major laugh. Chad was a foundling, Nathan
said: his mother was dead and his father had gone
of? to the Mexican War and never come back: he
had taken the mother in himself and Chad had been
born in his own house, when he lived farther up the
river, and the boy had begun to run away as soon
as he was old enough to toddle. And with each
sentence Nathan would call for confirmation on a
silent, dark-faced daughter who sat inside : "Didn't
he, Betsy?" or "Wasn't he, gal?" And the girl
would nod sullenly, but say nothing. It seemed a
hopeless mission except that, on the way back, the
Major learned that there were one or two Bufords
living down the Cumberland, and like old Joel,
shook his head over Nathan's pharisaical philan
thropy to a homeless boy and wondered what the
motive under it was — but he went back wTith the
old hunter and tried to get Chad to go home with
him. The boy was rock-firm in his refusal.

"I'm obleeged to you, Major, but I reckon I bet
ter stay in the mountains." That was all Chad
would say, and at last the Major gave up and rode
back over the mountain and down the Cumberland

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THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

alone, still on his quest. At a blacksmith's shop
far down the river he found a man who had "heerd
tell of a Chad Buford who had been killed in the
Mexican War and whose daddy lived 'bout fifteen
mile down the river." The Major found that Bu
ford dead, but an old woman told him his name
was Chad, that he had "fit in the War o' 1812
when he was nothin' but a chunk of a boy, and that
his daddy, whose name, too, was Chad, had been
killed by Injuns some'eres aroun' Cumberland
Gap." By this time the Major was as keen as a
hound on the scent, and, in a cabin at the foot of
the sheer gray wall that crumbles into the Gap, he
had the amazing luck to find an octogenarian with
an unclouded memory who could recollect a queer-
looking old man who had been killed by Indians
-"a ole feller with the curiosest hair I ever did
see," added the patriarch. His name was Colonel
Buford, and the old man knew where he was
buried, for he himself was old enough at the time
to help bury him. Greatly excited, the Major
hired mountaineers to dig into the little hill that the
old man pointed out, on which there was, however,
no sign of a grave, and, at last, they uncovered the
skeleton of an old gentleman in a wig and peruke!
There was little doubt now that the boy, no matter
what the blot on his 'scutcheon, was of his own flesh
and blood, and the Major was tempted to go back
at once for him, but it was a long way, and he was

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

ill and anxious to get back home. So he took the
Wilderness Road for the Bluegrass, and wrote old
Joel the facts and asked him to send Chad to him
whenever he would come. But the boy would not
go. There was no definite reason in his mind. It
was a stubborn instinct merely — the instinct of
pride, of stubborn independence — of shame that
festered in his soul like a hornet's sting. Even Me
lissa urged him. She never tired of hearing Chad
tell about the Bluegrass country, and when she
knew that the Major wanted him to go back, she
followed him out in the yard that night and found
him on the fence whittling. A red star was sink
ing behind the mountains. "Why won't you go
back no more, Chad ?" she said.

" 'Cause I hain't got no daddy er mammy."
Then Melissa startled him.

"Well, I'd go — an' / hain't got no daddy er
mammy." Chad stopped his whittling.

"Whut'd you say, Lissy?" he asked, gravely.

Melissa was frightened — the boy looked so se
rious.

"Cross yo* heart an* body that you won't nuver
tell no body." Chad crossed.

"Well, mammy said I mustn't ever tell nobody
—but I hain't got no daddy er mammy. I heerd
her a-tellin' the school-teacher." And the little girl
shook her head over her frightful crime of diso
bedience.

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THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

"You hain't?"

"I hain't!"

Melissa, too, was a waif, and Chad looked at
her with a wave of new affection and pity.

"Now, why won't you go back just because you
hain't got no daddy an' mammy ?"

Chad hesitated. There was no use making Me
lissa unhappy.

"Oh, I'd just ruther stay hyeh in the mountains,"
he said, carelessly — lying suddenly like the little
gentleman that he was — lying as he knew, and as
Melissa some day would come to know. Then
Chad looked at the little girl a long while, and in
such a queer way that Melissa turned her face shyly
to the red star.

"I'm goin' to stay right hyeh. Ain't you glad,

13 "
>issy r

The little girl turned her eyes shyly back again.
"Yes, Chad," she said.

He would stay in the mountains and work hard;
and when he grew up he would marry Melissa and
they would go away where nobody knew him or
her: or they would stay right there in the moun
tains where nobody blamed him for what he was
nor Melissa for what she was; and he would study
law like Caleb Hazel, and go to the Legislature —
but Melissa! And with the thought of Melissa in
the mountains came always the thought of dainty
Margaret in the Bluegrass and the chasm that lay

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

between the two — between Margaret and him, for
that matter; and when Mother Turner called Me
lissa from him in the orchard next day, Chad lay on
his back under an apple-tree, for a long while, think
ing; and then he whistled for Jack and climbed the
spur above the river where he could look down on
the shadowed water and out to the clouded heaps of
rose and green and crimson, where the sun was go
ing down under one faint white star. Melissa was
the glow-worm that, when darkness came, would
be a watch-fire at his feet — Margaret, the star to
which his eyes were lifted night and day — and so
runs the world. He lay long watching that star.
It hung almost over the world of which he had
dreamed so long and upon which he had turned
his back forever. Forever ? Perhaps, but he went
back home that night with a trouble in his soul that
was not to pass, and while he sat by the fire he
awoke from the same dream to find Melissa's big
eyes fixed on him, and in them was a vague trouble
that was more than his own reflected back to him.
Still the boy went back sturdily to his old life,
working in the fields, busy about the house and
stable, going to school, reading and studying with
the school-master at nights, and wandering in the
woods with Jack and his rifle. And he hungered
for spring to come again when he should go with
the Turner boys to take another raft of logs down
the river to the capital. Spring came, and going

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THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

out to the back pasture one morning, Chad found
a long-legged, ungainly creature stumbling awk
wardly about his old mare — a colt! That, too, he
owed the Major, and he would have burst with
pride had he known that the colt's sire was a fa
mous stallion in the Bluegrass. That spring he
did go down the river again. He did not let the
Major know he was coming and, through a name
less shyness, he could not bring himself to go to
see his old friend and kinsman, but in Lexington,
while he and the school-master were standing on
Cheapside, the Major whirled around a corner on
them in his carriage, and, as on the turnpike a year
before, old Tom, the driver, called out:

"Look dar, Mars Cal ! " And there stood Chad.

"Why, bless my soul! Chad — why, boy! How
you have grown!" For Chad had grown, and his
face was curiously aged and thoughtful. The Ma
jor insisted on taking him home, and the school
master, too, who went reluctantly. Miss Lucy
was there, looking whiter and more fragile than
ever, and she greeted Chad with a sweet kindli
ness that took the sting from his unjust remem
brance of her. And what that failure to under
stand her must have been Chad better knew when
he saw the embarrassed awe, in her presence, of
the school-master, for whom all in the mountains
had so much reverence. At the table was Thanky-
ma'am waiting. Around the quarters and the sta-

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

ble the pickaninnies and servants seemed to remem
ber the boy in a kindly genuine way that touched
him, and even Jerome Conners, the overseer,
seemed glad to see him. The Major was drawn at
once to the grave school-master, and he had a long
talk with him that night. It was no use, Caleb
Hazel said, trying to persuade the boy to live with
the Major — not yet. And the Major was more
content when he came to know in what good hands
the boy was, and, down in his heart, he loved the
lad the more for his sturdy independence, and for
the pride that made him shrink from facing the
world with the shame of his birth; knowing that
Chad thought of him perhaps more than of him
self. Such unwillingness to give others trouble
seemed remarkable in so young a lad. Not once
did the Major mention the Deans to the boy, and
about them Chad asked no questions — not even
when he saw their carriage passing the Major's
gate. When they came to leave the Major said:

"Well, Chad, when that filly of yours is a year
old, I'll buy 'em both from you, if you'll sell 'em, and
I reckon you can come up and go to school then."

Chad shook his head. Sell that colt ? He
would as soon have thought of selling Jack. But
the temptation took root, just the same, then and
there, and grew steadily until, after another year
in the mountains, it grew too strong. For, in that
year, Chad grew to look the fact of his birth

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THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

steadily in the face, and in his heart grew steadily a
proud resolution to make his way in the world
despite it. It was curious how Melissa came to
know the struggle that was going on within him
and how Chad came to know that she knew —
though no word passed between them : more curious
still, how it came with a shock to Chad one day
to realize how little was the tragedy of his life in
comparison with the tragedy in hers, and to learn
that the little girl with swift vision had already
reached that truth and with sweet unselfishness had
reconciled herself. He was a boy — he could go
out in the world and conquer it, while her life was
as rigid and straight before her as though it ran
between close walls of rock as steep and sheer as
the cliff across the river. One thing he never
guessed — what it cost the little girl to support him
bravely in his purpose, and to stand with smiling
face when the first breath of one sombre autumn
stole through the hills, and Chad and the school
master left the Turner home for the Bluegrass,
this time to stay.

She stood in the doorway after they had waved
good-by from the head of the river — the smile gone
and her face in a sudden dark eclipse. The wise
old mother went in-doors. Once the girl started
through the yard as though she would rush after
them and stopped at the gate, clinching it hard
with both hands. As suddenly she became quiet.

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

She went in-doors to her work and worked quietly
and without a word. Thus she did all day while
her mind and her heart ached. When she went
after the cows before sunset she stopped at the
barn where Beelzebub had been tied. She lifted
her eyes to the hay-loft where she and Chad had
hunted for hens' eggs and played hide-and-seek.
She passed through the orchard where they had
worked and played so many happy hours, and on
to the back pasture where the Dillon sheep had
been killed and she had kept the Sheriff from shoot
ing Jack. And she saw and noted everything with
a piteous pain and dry eyes. But she gave no sign
that night, and not until she was in bed did she
with covered head give way. Then the bed shook
with her smothered sobs. This is the sad way with
women. After the way of men, Chad proudly
marched the old Wilderness Road that led to a big,
bright, beautiful world where one had but to do
and dare to reach the stars. The men who had
trod that road had made that big world beyond,
and their life Chad himself had lived so far. Only,
where they had lived he had been born — in a log-
cabin. Their weapons — the axe and the rifle —
had been his. He had had the same fight with
Nature as they. He knew as well as they what life
in the woods in "a half-faced camp" was. Their
rude sports and pastimes, their log-rollings, house-
raisings, quilting parties, corn-huskings, feats of

186

THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

strength, had been his. He had the same lynx eyes,
cool courage, swiftness of foot, readiness of re
source that had been trained into them. His heart
was as stout and his life as simple and pure. He
was taking their path and, in the far West, beyond
the Bluegrass world where he was going, he could,
if he pleased, take up the same life at the precise
point where they had left off. At sunset, Chad
and the school-master stood on the summit of the
Cumberland foothills and looked over the rolling
land with little less of a thrill, doubtless, than the
first hunters felt when the land before them was
as much a wilderness as the wilds through which
they had made their way. Below them a farm
house shrank half out of sight into a little hollow,
and toward it they went down.

The outside world had moved swiftly during
the two years that they had been buried in the hills
as they learned at the farm-house that night. Al
ready the national storm was threatening, the air
was electrically charged with alarms, and already
here and there the lightning had flashed. The
underground railway was busy with black freight,
and John Brown, fanatic, was boldly lifting his
shaggy head. Old Brutus Dean was even publish
ing an abolitionist paper at Lexington, the aris
tocratic heart of the State. He was making
abolition speeches throughout the Bluegrass with
a dagger thrust in the table before him — shaking

187

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

his black mane and roaring defiance like a lion.
The news thrilled Chad unaccountably, as did the
shadow of any danger, but it threw the school-mas
ter into gloom. There was more. A dark little
man by the name of Douglas and a sinewy giant
by the name of Lincoln were thrilling the West.
Phillips and Garrison were thundering in Massa
chusetts, and fiery tongues in the South were flash
ing back scornful challenges and threats that would
imperil a nation. An invisible air-line shot sud
denly between the North and the South, destined
to drop some day and lie a dead-line on the earth,
and on each side of it two hordes of brothers, who
thought themselves two hostile peoples, were
shrinking away from each other with the half-con
scious purpose of making ready for a charge. In
no other State in the Union was the fratricidal char
acter of the coming war to be so marked as in
Kentucky, in no other State was the national drama
to be so fully played to the bitter end.

That night even, Brutus Dean was going to
speak near by, and Chad and Caleb Hazel went to
hear him. The fierce abolitionist first placed a
Bible before him.

'This is for those who believe in religion," he
said; then a copy of the Constitution: "this for
those who believe in the laws and in freedom of
speech. And this," he thundered, driving a dag
ger into the table and leaving it to quiver there, "is

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THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

for the rest! " Then he went on and no man dared
to interrupt.

And only next day came the rush of wind that
heralds the storm. Just outside of Lexington Chad
and the school-master left the mare and colt at
a farm-house and with Jack went into town on foot.
It was Saturday afternoon, the town was full of
people, and an excited crowd was pressing along
iVIain Street toward Cheapside. The man and the
boy followed eagerly. Cheapside was thronged —
thickest around a frame building that bore a news
paper sign on which was the name of Brutus Dean.
A man dashed from a hardware store with an axe,
followed by several others with heavy hammers in
rheir hands. One swing of the axe, the door was
crashed open and the crowd went in like wolves.
Shattered windows, sashes and all, flew out into the
street, followed by showers of type, chair-legs, ta
ble-tops, and then, piece by piece, the battered cogs,
wheels, and forms of a printing-press. The crowd
made little noise. In fifteen minutes the house was
a shell with gaping windows, surrounded with a
pile of chaotic rubbish, and the men who had done
the work quietly disappeared. Chad looked at the
school-master for the first time — neither of them
had uttered a word. The school-master's face was
white with anger, his hands were clinched, and his
eyes were so fierce and burning that the boy was
frightened.

189

XV

TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

AS the school-master had foretold, there was no
room at college for Jack. Several times
Major Buford took the dog home with him, but
Jack would not stay. The next morning the dog
would turn up at the door of the dormitory where
Chad and the school-master slept, and as a last
resort the boy had to send Jack home. So, one Sun
day morning Chad led Jack out of the town for
several miles, and at the top of a high hill po nted
toward the mountains and sternly told him to go
home. And Jack, understanding that the boy was
in earnest, trotted sadly away with a placard around
his neck:

I own this dog. His name is Jack. He
is on his way to Kingdom Come. Please
feed him. Uncle Joel Turner will shoot any
man who steels him. CHAD.

It was no little consolation to Chad to think that
the faithful sheep-dog would in no small measure
repay the Turners for all they had done for him.
But Jack was the closest link that bound him to the

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TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

mountains, and dropping out of sight behind the
crest of the hill, Chad crept to the top again and
watched Jack until he trotted out of sight, and the
link was broken. Then Chad went slowly and sor
rowfully back to his room.

It was the smallest room in the dormitory that
the school-master had chosen for himself and Chad,
and in it were one closet, one table, one lamp, two
chairs and one bed — no more. There were two
windows in the little room — one almost swept by
the branches of a locust-tree and overlooking the
brown-gray sloping campus and the roofs and
church-steeples of the town — the other opening to
the east on a sweep of field and woodland over
which the sun rose with a daily message from the
unseen mountains far beyond and toward which
Chad had sent Jack trotting home. It was a proud
day for Chad when Caleb Hazel took him to
"matriculate" — leading him from one to another
of the professors, who awed the lad with their
preternatural dignity, but it was a sad blow when
he was told that in everything but mathematics he
must go to the preparatory department until the
second session of the term — the " kitchen," as it was
called by the students. He bore it bravely, though,
and the school-master took him down the shady
streets to the busy thoroughfare, where the official
book-store was, and where Chad, with pure ecstasy,
caught his first new books under one arm and

191

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

trudged back, bending his head now and then to
catch the delicious smell of the fresh leaves and
print. It was while he was standing with his treas
ures under the big elm at the turnstile, looking
across the campus at the sundowi. that two boys
came down the gravel path. He knew them both
at once as Dan and Harry Dean. Both looked
at him curiously, as he thought, but he saw that
neither knew him and no one spoke. The sound
of wheels came up the street behind him just then,
and a carriage halted at the turnstile to take them
in. Turning, Chad saw a slender girl with dark
hair and eyes and heard her call brightly to the
boys. He almost caught his breath at the sound
of her voice, but he kept sturdily on his way, and
the girl's laugh rang in his ears as it rang the first
time he heard it, was ringing when he reached his
room, ringing when he went to bed that night, and
lay sleepless, looking through his window at the
quiet stars.

For some time, indeed, no one recognized him,
and Chad was glad. Once he met Richard Hunt
riding with Margaret, and the piercing dark eyes
that the boy remembered so well turned again to
look at him. Chad colored and bravely met them
with his own, but there was no recognition. And
fhe saw John Morgan — Captain John Morgan—
at the head of the "Lexington Rifles," which he
iiad just formed from the best blood of the town,

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TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

as though in long preparation for that coming war
—saw him and Richard Hunt, as lieutenant, drill
ing them in the campus, and the sight thrilled him
as nothing else, except Margaret, had ever done.
Many times he met the Dean brothers on the play
ground and in the streets, but there was no sign
that he was known until he was called to the black
board one day in geometry, the only course in which
he had not been sent to the " kitchen." Then Chad
saw Harry turn quickly when the professor called
his name. Confused though he was for a moment,
he gave his demonstration in his quaint speech with
perfect clearness and without interruption from the
professor, who gave the boy a keen look as he said,
quietly:

"Very good, sir!" And Harry could see his
fingers tracing in his class-book the figures that
meant a perfect recitation.

"How are you, Chad ?" he said in the hallway
afterward.

"Howdye!" said Chad, shaking the proffered
hand.

"I didn't know you — you've grown so tall.
Didn't you know me ?"

"Yes."

' Then why didn't you speak to me ?"
"Cause you didn't know me."

Harry laughed. "Well, that isn't fair. See you
again."

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"All right," said Chad.

That very afternoon Chad met Dan in a foot
ball game — an old-fashioned game, in which there
were twenty or thirty howling lads on each side and
nobody touched the ball except with his foot — met
him so violently that, clasped in each other's arms,
they tumbled to the ground.

"Leggo!" said Dan.

"S'pose you leggo!" said Chad.

As Dan started after the ball he turned to look
at Chad and after the game he went up to him.

"Why, aren't you the boy who was out at Ma
jor Buford's once ?"

"Yes." Dan thrust out his hand and began to
laugh. So did Chad, and each knew that the other
was thinking of the tournament.

"In college?"

" Math'matics," said Chad. " I'm in the kitchen
fer the rest."

"Oh!" said Dan. " Where you living ?" Chad
pointed to the dormitory, and again Dan said
"Oh!" in a way that made Chad flush, but added,
quickly:

"You better play on our side to-morrow."

Chad looked at his clothes — foot-ball seemed
pretty hard on clothes— "I don't know," he said — -
"mebbe."

It was plain that neither of the boys was hold
ing anything against Chad, but neither had asked

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TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

the mountain lad to come to see him — an omission
that was almost unforgivable according to Chad's
social ethics. So Chad proudly went into his shell
again, and while the three boys met often, no in
timacy developed. Often he saw them with Mar
garet, on the street, in a carriage or walking with
a laughing crowd of boys and girls; on the por
ticos of old houses or in the yards; and, one night,
Chad saw, through the wide-open door of a cer
tain old house on the corner of Mill and Market
Streets, a party going on; and Margaret, all in
white, dancing, and he stood in the shade of the
trees opposite with new pangs shooting through
him and went back to his room in desolate loneli
ness, but with a new grip on his resolution that his
own day should yet come.

Steadily the boy worked, forging his way slowly
but surely toward the head of his class in the
"kitchen," and the school-master helped him un-
wearyingly. And it was a great help — mental and
spiritual — to be near the stern Puritan, who loved
the boy as a brother and was ever ready to guide
him with counsel and aid him with his studies. In
time the Major went to the president to ask him
about Chad, and that august dignitary spoke of
the lad in a way that made the Major, on his way
through the campus, swish through the grass with
his cane in great satisfaction. He always spoke of
the boy now as his adopted son and, whenever it

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

was possible, he came in to take Chad out home
to spend Sunday with him; but, being a wise man
and loving Chad's independence, he let the boy
have his own way. He had bought the filly — and
would hold her, he said, until Chad could buy her
back, and he would keep the old nag as a brood
mare and would divide profits with Chad — to all
of which the boy agreed. The question of the lad's
birth was ignored between them, and the Major
rarely spoke to Chad of the Deans, who were liv
ing in town during the winter, nor questioned him
about Dan or Harry or Margaret. But Chad had
found out where the little girl went to church, and
every Sunday, despite Caleb Hazel's protest, he
would slip into the Episcopal church, with a queer
feeling — little Calvinist of the hills that he was —
that it was not quite right for him even to enter
that church; and he would watch the little girl
come in with her family and, after the queer way
of these "furriners," kneel first in prayer. And
there, with soul uplifted by the dim rich light and
the peal of the organ, he would sit watching her;
rising when she rose, watching the light from the
windows on her shining hair and sweet-spirited
face, watching her reverent little head bend in
obeisance to the name of the Master, though he
kept his own held straight, for no Popery like that
was for him. Always, however, he would slip out
before the service was quite over and never wait

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TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

even to see her come out of church. He was too
proud for that and, anyhow, it made him lonely to
see the people greeting one another and chatting
and going off home together when there was not a
soul to speak to him. It was just one such Sunday
that they came face to face for the first time.
Chad had gone down the street after leaving the
church, had changed his mind and was going back
to his room. People were pouring from the church,
as he went by, but Chad did not even look across.
A clatter rose behind him and he turned to see a
horse and rockaway coming at a gallop up the
street, which was narrow. The negro driver,
frightened though he was, had sense enough to pull
his running horse away from the line of vehicles
in front of the church so that the beast stumbled
against the curb-stone, crashed into a tree, and
dropped struggling in the gutter below another
line of vehicles waiting on the other side of the
street. Like lightning, Chad leaped and landed
full length on the horse's head and was tossed vio
lently to and fro, but he held on until the animal
lay still.

"Unhitch the hoss," he called, sharply.

"Well, that was pretty quick work for a boy,"
said a voice across the street that sounded familiar,
and Chad looked across to see General Dean and
Margaret watching him. The boy blushed furi
ously when his eyes met Margaret's and he thought

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

he saw her start slightly, but he lowered his eyes
and hurried away.

It was only a few days later that, going up from
town toward the campus, he turned a corner and
there was Margaret alone and moving slowly
ahead of him. Hearing his steps she turned her
head to see who it was, but Chad kept his eyes on
the ground and passed her without looking up.
And thus he went on, although she was close be
hind him, across the street and to the turnstile.
As he was passing through, a voice rose behind
him:

"You aren't very polite, little boy." He turned
quickly — Margaret had not gone around the cor
ner: she, too, was coming through the campus and
there she stood, grave and demure, though her eyes
were dancing.

"My mamma says a nice little boy always lets a
little girl go first"

"I didn't know you was comin' through."

"Was comin' through!" Margaret made a lit
tle face as though to say — "Oh, dear."

"I said I didn't know you were coming through
this way."

Margaret shook her head. "No," she said;
"no, you didn't."

"Well, that's what I meant to say." Chad was
having a hard time with his English. He had
snatched his cap from his head, had stepped back

198

TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

outside the stile and was waiting to turn it for her,
Margaret passed through and waited where the
paths forked.

"Are you going up to the college?" she asked.

"I was — but I ain't now — if you'll let me walk
a piece with you." He was scarlet with confusion
— a tribute that Chad rarely paid his kind. His
way of talking was very funny, to be sure, but had
she not heard her father say that "the poor little
chap had had no chance in life;" and Harry, that
some day he would be the best in his class ?

"Aren't you— Chad?"

"Yes — ain't you Margaret — Miss Margaret?"

"Yes, I'm Margaret." She was pleased with
the hesitant title and the boy's halting rever
ence.

"An' I called you a little gal." Margaret's
laugh tinkled in merry remembrance. "An' you
wouldn't take my fish."

"I can't bear to touch them."

"I know," said Chad, remembering Melissa.

They passed a boy who knew Chad, but not
Margaret. The lad took off his hat, but Chad did
not lift his; then a boy and a girl and, when only
the two girls spoke, the other boy lifted his hat,
though he did not speak to Margaret. Still Chad's
hat was untouched and when Margaret looked up,
Chad's face was red with confusion again. But it
never took the boy long to learn and, thereafter,

199

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

during the walk his hat came off unfailingly.
Everyone looked at the two with some surprise
and Chad noticed that the little girl's chin was be
ing lifted higher and higher. His intuition told
him what the matter was, and when they reached
the stile across the campus and Chad saw a crowd
of Margaret's friends coming down the street, he
halted as if to turn back, but the little girl told him
imperiously to come on. It was a strange escort
for haughty Margaret — the country-looking boy,
in coarse homespun — but Margaret spoke cheerily
to her friends and went on, looking up at Chad and
talking to him as though he were the dearest friend
she had on earth.

At the edge of town she suggested that they
walk across a pasture and go back by another street,
and not until they were passing through the wood
land did Chad come to himself.

"You know I didn't rickollect when you called
me 'little boy/"

"Indeed!"

"Not at fust, I mean," stammered Chad.

Margaret grew mock-haughty and Chad grew
grave. He spoke very slowly and steadily. "I
reckon I rickollect ever' thing that happened out
thar a sight better'n you. I ain't forgot nothin'-
anything."

The boy's sober and half-sullen tone made Mar
garet catch her breath with a sudden vague alarm.

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TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

Unconsciously she quickened her pace, but, already,
she was mistress of an art to which she was born
and she said, lightly:

"Now, that's much better." A piece of paste
board dropped from Chad's jacket just then, and,
taking the little girl's cue to swerve from the point
at issue, he picked it up and held it out for Mar
garet to read. It was the first copy of the placard
which he had tied around Jack's neck when he sent
him home, and it set Margaret to laughing and
asking questions. Before he knew it Chad was tell
ing her about Jack and the mountains; how he had
run away; about the Turners and about Melissa
and coming down the river on a raft — all he had
done and all he meant to do. And from looking at
Chad now and then, Margaret finally kept her eyes
fixed on his — and thus they stood when they
reached the gate, while crows flew cawing over
them and the air grew chill.

" And did Jack go home ? "

Chad laughed.

"No, he didn't. He come back, and I had to
hide fer two days. Then, because he couldn't find
me he did go, thinking I had gone back to the
mountains, too. He went to look fer me."

"Well, if he comes back again I'll ask my papa
to get them to let you keep Jack at college," said
Margaret.

Chad shook his head.

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Then I'll keep him for you myself." The boy
looked his gratitude, but shook his head again.

"He won't stay."

Margaret asked for the placard again as they
moved down the street.

"You've got it spelled wrong," she said, pointing
to "steel." Chad blushed. "I can't spell when T
write," he said. "I can't even talk — right."

"But you'll learn," she said.

"Will you help me?"

"Yes."

"Tell me when I say things wrong ?"

"Yes."

"Where'm I goin' to see you ?"

Margaret shook her head thoughtfully: then the
reason for her speaking first to Chad came out.

"Papa and I saw you on Sunday, and papa said
you must be very strong as well as brave, and that
you knew something about horses. Harry told us
who you were when papa described you, and then I
remembered. Papa told Harry to bring you to see
us. And you must come," she said, decisively.

They had reached the turnstile at the campus
again.

"Have you had any more tournaments ?" asked
Margaret.

"No," said Chad, apprehensively.

" Do you remember the last thing I said to you ? "

"I rickollect that better'n anything," said Chad.
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TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

"Well, I didn't hate you. I'm sorry I said that,"
she said, gently. Chad looked very serious.

"That's all right," he said. "I seed — I .r<m>you
on Sunday, too."

"Did you know me ?"

" I reckon I did. And that wasn't the fust time/'
Margaret's eyes were opening with surprise.

"I been goin' to church ever' Sunday fer nothin'
else but just to see you." Again his tone gave her
vague alarm, but she asked:

"Why didn't you speak to me ?"

They were nearing the turnstile across the cam
pus now, and Chad did not answer.

"Why didn't you speak to me ?"

Chad stopped suddenly, and Margaret looked
quickly at him, and saw that his face was scarlet.
The little girl started and her own face flamed.
There was one thing she had forgotten, and even
now she could not recall what it was — only that it
was something terrible she must not know — old
Mammy's words when Dan was carried in senseless
after the tournament. Frightened and helpless, she
shrank toward the turnstile, but Chad did not wait.
With his cap in his hand, he turned abruptly, with
out a sound, and strode away.

203

XVI

AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER

A ND yet, the next time Chad saw Margaret,
•*• *• she spoke to him shyly but cordially, 'and
when he did not come near her, she stopped him
on the street one day and reminded him of his
promise to come and see them. And Chad knew
the truth at once — that she had never asked her
father about him, but had not wanted to know
what she had been told she must not know, and
had properly taken it for granted that her father
would not ask Chad to his house, if there were a
good reason why he should not come. But Chad
did not go even to the Christmas party that Mar
garet gave in town, though the Major urged him.
He spent Christmas with the Major, and he did go
to a country party, where the Major was delighted
with the boy's grace and agility, dancing the quad
rille, and where the lad occasioned no little amuse
ment with his improvisations in the way of cutting
pigeon's wings and shuffling, which he had learned
in the mountains. So the Major made him accept
a loan and buy a suit for social purposes after
Christmas, and had him go to Madam Blake's

204.

AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER

dancing school, and promise to go to the next party
to which he was asked. And that Chad did — to
the big gray house on the corner, through whose
widespread doors his longing eyes had watched
Margaret and her friends flitting like butterflies
months before.

It intoxicated the boy — the lights, music, flow
ers, the little girls in white — and Margaret. For
the first time he met her friends, Nellie Hunt, sis
ter to Richard; Elizabeth Morgan, cousin to John
Morgan; and Miss Jennie Overstreet, who, young
as she was, wrote poems — but Chad had eyes only
for Margaret. It was while he was dancing a
quadrille with her, that he noticed a tall, pale youth
with black hair, glaring at him, and he recognized
Georgie Forbes, a champion of Margaret, and the
old enemy who had caused his first trouble in his
new home. Chad laughed with fearless gladness,
and Margaret tossed her head. It was Georgie
now who blackened and spread the blot on Chad's
good name, and it was Georgie to whom Chad—
fast learning the ways of gentlemen — promptly
sent a pompous challenge, that the difficulty might
be settled "in any way the gentleman saw fit."
Georgie insultingly declined to fight with one who
was not his equal, and Chad boxed his jaws in the
presence of a crowd, floored him with one blow,
and contemptuously twisted his nose. Thereafter
open comment ceased. Chad was making himself

205

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

known. He was the swiftest runner on the foot
ball field; he had the quickest brain in mathe
matics; he was elected to the Periclean Society, and
astonished his fellow-members with a fiery denun
ciation of the men who banished Napoleon to St.
Helena — so fiery was it, indeed, that his opponents
themselves began to wonder how that crime had
ever come to pass. He would fight at the drop
of a hat, and he always won; and by-and-by the
boy began to take a fierce joy in battling his way
upward against a block that would have crushed
a weaker soul. It was only with Margaret that
that soul was in awe. He began to love her with
a pure reverence that he could never know at an
other age. Every Saturday night, when dusk
fell, he was mounting the steps of her house.
Every Sunday morning he was waiting to take her
home from church. Every afternoon he looked for
her, hoping to catch sight of her on the streets, and
it was only when Dan and Harry got indignant,
and after Margaret had made a passionate defence
of Chad in the presence of the family, that the Gen
eral and Mrs. Dean took the matter in hand. It
was a childish thing, of course; a girlish whim. It
was right that they should be kind to the boy—
for Major Buford's sake, if not for his own; but
they could not have even the pretence of more
than a friendly intimacy between the two, and so
Margaret was told the truth. Immediately, when

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AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER

Chad next saw her, her honest eyes sadly told him
that she knew the truth, and Chad gave up then.
Thereafter he disappeared from sports and from
his kind in every way, except in the classroom and
in the debating hall. Sullenly he stuck to his
books. From five o'clock in the morning until ten
o'clock at night, he was at them steadily, in his
room, or at recitation — except for an hour's walk
with the school-master and the three half-hours
that his meals kept him away. He grew so pale
and thin that the Major and Caleb Hazel were
greatly worried, but protest from both was use
less. Before the end of the term he had mounted
into college in every study, and was holding his
own. At the end he knew his power — knew what
he could do, and his face was set, for his future,
dauntless. When vacation came, he went at once
to the Major's farm, but not to be idle. In a week
or two he was taking some of the reins into his
own hands as a valuable assistant to the Major.
He knew a good horse, could guess the weight of
a steer with surprising accuracy, and was a past
master in knowledge of sheep. By instinct he was
canny at a trade — what mountaineer is not ? — and
he astonished the Major with the shrewd deals he
made. Authority seemed to come naturally to
him, and the Major swore that he could get more
work out of the "hands" than the overseer himself,
who sullenly resented Chad's interference, but

207

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

dared not open his lips. Not once did he go to
the Deans', and neither Harry nor Dan came near
him. There was little intercourse between the Ma
jor and the General, as well; for, while the Major
could not, under the circumstances, blame the Gen
eral, inconsistently, he could not quite forgive him,
and the line of polite coolness between the neigh
bors was never overstepped. At the end of July,
Chad went to the mountains to see the Turners and
Jack and Melissa. He wore his roughest clothes,
put on no airs, and, to all eyes, save Melissa's, he
was the same old Chad. But feminine subtlety
knows no social or geographical lines, and while
Melissa knew what had happened as well as Chad,
she never let him see that she knew. Apparently
she was giving open encouragement to Dave Hil
ton, a tawny youth from down the river, who was
hanging, dog-like, about the house, and foolish
Chad began to let himself dream of Margaret with
a light heart. On the third day before he was to
go back to the Bluegrass, a boy came from over
Black Mountain with a message from old Nathan
Cherry. Old Nathan had joined the church, had
fallen ill, and, fearing he was going to die, wanted
to see Chad. Chad went over with curious premo
nitions that were not in vain, and he came back
with a strange story that he told only to old Joel,
under promise that he should never make it known
to Melissa. Then he started for the Bluegrass,

208

AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER

going over Pine Mountain and down through Cum
berland Gap. He would come back every year of
his life, he told Melissa and the Turners, but Chad
knew he was bidding a last farewell to the life he
had known in the mountains. At Melissa's wish
and old Joel's, he left Jack behind, though he
sorely wanted to take the dog with him. It was
little enough for him to do in return for their kind
ness, and he could see that Melissa's affection for
Jack was even greater than his own: and how in
comparably lonelier than his life was the life that
she must lead! This time Melissa did not rush to
the yard gate when he was gone. She sank slowly
where she stood to the steps of the porch, and there
she sat stone-still. Old Joel passed her on the way
to the barn. Several times the old mother walked
to the door behind her, and each time starting; to

o

speak, stopped and turned back, but the girl neither
saw nor heard them. Jack trotted by, whimper
ing. He sat down in front of her, looking up at
her unseeing eyes, and it was only when he crept
to her and put his head in her lap, that she put her
arms around him and bent her own head down; but
no tears came.

209

XVII

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

AND so, returned to the Bluegrass, the mid-
•*• ^- summer of that year, Chadwick Buford,
gentleman. A youth of eighteen, with the self-
poise of a man, and a pair of level, clear eyes, that
looked the world in the face as proudly as ever,
but with no defiance and no secret sense of shame.
It was a curious story that Chad brought back and
told to the Major, on the porch under the honey
suckle vines, but it seemed to surprise the Major
very little: how old Nathan had sent for him to
come to his death-bed and had told Chad that he
was no foundling; that one of his farms belonged
to the boy; that he had lied to the Major about
Chad's mother, who was a lawful wife, in order to
keep the land for himself; how old Nathan had
offered to give back the farm, or pay him the price
of it in live stock, and how, at old Joel's advice,
he had taken the stock and turned the stock into
money. How, after he had found his mother's
grave, his first act had been to take up the rough
bee-gum coffin that held her remains, and carry it
down the river, and bury her where she had the

210

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

right to lie, side by side with her grandfather and
his — the old gentleman who slept in wig and
peruke on the hill-side — that her good name and
memory should never again suffer insult from any
living tongue. It was then that Major took Chad
by the shoulders roughly, and, with tears in his
eyes, swore that he would have no more nonsense
from the boy; that Chad was flesh of his flesh and
bone of his bone; that he would adopt him and
make him live where he belonged, and break his
damned pride. And it was then that Chad told
him how gladly he would come, now that he could
bring him an untarnished name. And the two
walked together down to the old family graveyard,
where the Major said that the two in the moun
tains should be brought some day and where the
two brothers who had parted nearly fourscore years
ago could, side by side, await Judgment Day.

When they went back into the house the Major
went to the sideboard.

"Have a drink, Chad?"

Chad laughed: "Do you think it will stunt my
growth ? "

"Stand up here, and let's see," said the Major.

The two stood up, back to back, in front of a
long mirror, and Chad's shaggy hair rose at least
an inch above the Major's thin locks of gray. The
Major turned and looked at him from head to foot
with affectionate pride.

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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Six feet in your socks, to the inch, without that
hair. I reckon it won't stunt you — not now."

"All right," laughed Chad, "then I'll take that
drink." And together they drank.

Thus, Chadwick Buford, gentleman, after the
lapse of three-quarters of a century, came back to
his own : and what that own, at that day and in that
land, was!

It was the rose of Virginia, springing, in full
bloom, from new and richer soil — a rose of a
deeper scarlet and a stronger stem: and the big vil
lage where the old University reared its noble front
was the very heart of that rose. There were the
proudest families, the stateliest homes, the broadest
culture, the most gracious hospitality, the gentlest
courtesies, the finest chivalry, that the State has
ever known. There lived the political idols; there,
under the low sky, rose the memorial shaft to Clay.
There had lived beaux and belles, memories of
whom hang still about the town, people it with
phantom shapes, and give an individual or a family
here and there a subtle distinction to-day. There
the grasp of Calvinism was most lax. There were
the dance, the ready sideboard, the card table, the
love of the horse and the dog, and but little pas
sion for the game-cock. There were as manly vir
tues, as manly vices, as the world has ever known.
And there, love was as far from lust as heaven from
hell.

212

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

It was on the threshold of this life that Chad
stood. Kentucky had given birth to the man who
was to uphold the Union — birth to the man who
would seek to shatter it. Fate had given Chad the
early life of one, and like blood with the other;
and, curiously enough, in his own short life, he al
ready epitomized the social development of the
nation, from its birth in a log cabin to its swift ma
turity behind the columns of a Greek portico.
Against the uncounted generations of gentlepeople
that ran behind him to sunny England, how little
could the short sleep of three in the hills count! It
may take three generations to make a gentleman,
but one is enough, if the blood be there, the heart
be right, and the brain and hand come early under
discipline.

It was to General Dean that the Major told
Chad's story first. The two old friends silently
grasped hands, and the cloud between them passed
like mist.

"Bring him over to dinner on Saturday, Cal —
you and Miss Lucy, won't you ? Some people are
coming out from town." In making amends, there
was no half-way with General Dean.

"I will," said the Major, "gladly."

The cool of the coming autumn was already in
the air that Saturday when Miss Lucy and the Ma
jor and Chad, in the old carriage, with old Tom
as driver and the pickaninny behind, started for

213

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

General Dean's. The Major was beautiful to be
hold, in his flowered waistcoat, his ruffled shirt,
white trousers strapped beneath his highly pol
ished, high-heeled boots, high hat and frock coat,
with only the lowest button fastened, in order to
give a glimpse of that wonderful waistcoat, just
as that, too, was unbuttoned at the top that the
ruffles might peep out upon the world. Chad's rai
ment, too, was a Solomon's — for him. He had
protested, but in vain; and he, too, wore white
trousers with straps, high-heeled boots, and a
wine-colored waistcoat and slouch hat, and a brave,
though very conscious, figure he made, with his
tall body, well-poised head, strong shoulders and
thick hair. It was a rare thing for Miss Lucy to
do, but the old gentlewoman could not resist the
Major, and she, too, rode in state with them, smil
ing indulgently at the Major's quips, and now,
kindly, on Chad. A drowsy peace lay over the
magnificent woodlands, unravaged then except for
firewood; the seared pastures, just beginning to
show green again for the second spring; the flash
ing creek, the seas of still hemp and yellow corn.
And Chad saw a wistful shadow cross Miss Lucy's
pale face, and a darker one anxiously sweep over
the Major's jesting lips.

Guests were arriving, when they entered the
yard gate, and guests were coming behind them.
General and Mrs. Dean were receiving them on

214

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

the porch, and Harry and Dan were helping
the ladies out of their carriages, while, leaning
against one of the columns, in pure white, waa
the graceful figure of Margaret. That there
could ever have been any feeling in any mem
ber of the family other than simple, gracious
kindliness toward him, Chad could neither see nor
feel. At once every trace of embarrassment in him
was gone, and he could but wonder at the swift
justice done him in a way that was so simple and
effective. Even with Margaret there was no trace
of consciousness. The past was wiped clean of all
save courtesy and kindness. There were the Hunts
—Nellie, and the Lieutenant of the Lexington
Rifles, Richard Hunt, a dauntless-looking dare
devil, with the ready tongue of a coffee-house wit
and the grace of a cavalier. There was Elizabeth
Morgan, to whom Harry's grave eyes were always
wandering, and Miss Jennie Overstreet, who was
romantic and openly now wrote poems for the Ob-
server, and who looked at Chad with no attempt to
conceal her admiration of his appearance and her
wonder as to who he was. And there were the
neighbors roundabout — the Talbotts, Quisenber-
rys, Clays, Prestons, Morgans — surely no less than
forty strong, and all for dinner. It was no little
trial for Chad in that crowd of fine ladies, judges,
soldiers, lawyers, statesmen — but he stood it well.
While his self-consciousness made him awkward, he

215

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

had pronounced dignity of bearing; his diffidence
emphasized his modesty, and he had the good sense
to stand and keep still. Soon they were at table
— and what a table and what a dinner that was!
The dining-room was the biggest and sunniest room
in the house; its walls covered with hunting prints,
pictures of game and stag heads. The table ran
the length of it. The snowy tablecloth hung almost
to the floor. At the head sat Mrs. Dean, with a
great tureen of calf's head soup in front of her.
Before the General was the saddle of venison that
was to follow, drenched in a bottle of ancient Ma
deira, and flanked by flakes of red-currant jelly.
Before the Major rested broiled wild ducks, on
which he could show his carving skill — on game
as well as men. A great turkey supplanted the
venison, and last to come, and before Richard
Hunt, Lieutenant of the Rifles, was a Kentucky
ham. That ham! Mellow, aged, boiled in cham
pagne, baked brown, spiced deeply, rosy pink
within, and of a flavor and fragrance to shatter the
fast of a Pope; and without, a brown-edged white
layer, so firm that the lieutenant's deft carving
knife, passing through, gave no hint to the eye that
it was delicious fat. There had been merry jest
and laughter and banter and gallant compliment be
fore, but it was Richard Hunt's turn now, and
story after story he told, as the rose-flakes dropped
un^er his knife in such thin slices that their edges

216

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

coiled. It was full half an hour before the carver
and story-teller were done. After that ham the
tablecloth was lifted, and the dessert spread on an
other lying beneath; then that, too, was raised, and
the nuts and wines were placed on a third — red
damask this time.

Then came the toasts: to the gracious hostess
from Major Buford; to Miss Lucy from General
Dean; from valiant Richard Hunt to blushing
Margaret, and then the ladies were gone, and the
talk was politics — the election of Lincoln, slavery,
disunion.

"If Lincoln is elected, no power but God's can
avert war," said Richard Hunt, gravely.

Dan's eyes flashed. "Will you take me ?"

The lieutenant lifted his glass. "Gladly, my
boy."

"Kentucky's convictions are with the Union;
her kinship and sympathies with the South,"
said a deep-voiced lawyer. "She must remain
neutral."

"Straddling the fence," said the Major, sarcas
tically.

"No; to avert the war, if possible, or to act the
peacemaker when the tragedy is over."

"Well, I can see Kentuckians keeping out of a
fight," laughed the General, and he looked around.
Three out of five of the men present had been in
the Mexican war. The General had been wounded

217

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

at Cerro Gordo, and the Major had brought his
dead home in leaden coffins.

'The fanatics of Boston, the hot-heads of South
Carolina — they are making the mischief."

"And New England began with slavery," said
the lawyer again.

"And naturally, with that conscience that is a
national calamity, was the first to give it up," said
Richard Hunt, "when the market price of slaves
fell to sixpence a pound in the open Boston
markets." There was an incredulous murmur.

"Oh, yes," said Hunt, easily, "I can show you
advertisements in Boston papers of slaves for sale
at sixpence a pound."

Perhaps it never occurred to a soul present that
the word "slave" was never heard in that region ex
cept in some such way. With Southerners, the ne
groes were "our servants" or "our people" — never
slaves. Two lads at that table were growing white
— Chad and Harry — and Chad's lips opened
first.

"I don't think slavery has much to do with the
question, really," he said, "not even with Mr. Lin
coln." The silent surprise that followed the boy's
embarrassed statement ended in a gasp of astonish
ment when Harry leaned across the table and said,
hotly:

"Slavery has everything to do with the ques
tion."

218

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

The Major looked bewildered; the General
frowned, and the keen-eyed lawyer spoke again:

"The struggle was written in the Constitution.
The framers evaded it. Logic leads one way as
well as another and no man can logically blame an
other for the way he goes."

"No more politics now, gentlemen," said the
General quickly. "We will join the ladies. Har
ry," he added, with some sternness, "lead the
way!"

As the three boys rose, Chad lifted his glass.
His face was pale and his lips trembled.

"May I propose a toast, General Dean ?"

"Why, certainly," said the General, kindly.

"I want to drink to one man but for whom I
might be in a log-cabin now, and might have died
there for all I know — my friend and, thank God!
my kinsman — Major Buford."

It was irregular and hardly in good taste, but
the boy had waited till the ladies were gone, and
it touched the Major that he should want to make
such a public acknowledgment that there should be
no false colors in the flag he meant henceforth to
bear.

The startled guests drank blindly to the con
fused Major, though they knew not why, but as the
lads disappeared the lawyer asked:

"Who is that boy, Major ?"

Outside, the same question had been asked
219

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

among the ladies and the same story told. The
three girls remembered him vaguely, they said, and
when Chad reappeared, in the eyes of the poetess
at least, the halo of romance floated above his head.

She was waiting for Chad when he came out on
the porch, and she shook her curls and flashed her
eyes in a way that almost alarmed him. Old
Mammy dropped him a curtsey, for she had had
her orders, and, behind her, Snowball, now a tall,
fine-looking coal-black youth, grinned a welcome.
The three girls were walking under the trees, with
their arms mysteriously twined about one another's
waists, and the poetess walked down toward them
with the three lads, Richard Hunt following.
Chad could not know how it happened, but, a mo
ment later, Dan was walking away with Nellie
Hunt one way; Harry with Elizabeth Morgan the
other; the Lieutenant had Margaret alone, and
Miss Overstreet was leading him away, raving
meanwhile about the beauty of field and sky. As
they went toward the gate he could not help flash
ing one look toward the pair under the fir tree. An
amused smile was playing under the Lieutenant's
beautiful mustache, his eyes were dancing with mis
chief, and Margaret was blushing with anything
else than displeasure.

"Oho!" he said, as Chad and his companion
passed on. "Sits the wind in that corner? Bless
me, if looks could kill, I'd have a happy death here

220

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

at your feet, Mistress Margaret. See the young
man ! It's the second time he has almost slain me."

Chad could scarcely hear Miss Jennie's happy
chatter, scarcely saw the shaking curls, the eyes all
but in a frenzy of rolling. His eyes were in the
back of his head, and his backward-listening ears
heard only Margaret's laugh behind him.

"Oh, I do love the autumn" — it was at the foot
of those steps, thought Chad, that he first saw Mar
garet springing to the back of her pony and dash
ing off under the fir trees — "and it's coming.
There's one scarlet leaf already" — Chad could see
the rock fence where he had sat that spring day—
"it's curious and mournful that you can see in any
season a sign of the next to come." And there was
the cre^k where he found Dan fishing, and there
the road led to the ford where Margaret had
spurned his offer of a slimy fish — ugh! "I do love
the autumn. It makes me feel like the young
woman who told Emerson that she had such mam
moth thoughts she couldn't give them utterance —
why, wake up, Mr. Buford, wake up!" Chad came
to with a start.

"Do you know you aren't very polite, Mr. Bu
ford ?" Mr. Buford! That did sound funny.

"But I know what the matter is," she went on.
"I saw you look" — she nodded her head backward.
"Can you keep a secret ?" Chad nodded; he had
not yet opened his lips.

221

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

'That's going to be a match back there. He's
only a few years older. The French say that a
woman should be half a man's age plus seven years.
That would make her only a few years too young,
and she can wait." Chad was scarlet under the
girl's mischievous torture, but a cry from the house
saved him. Dan was calling them back.

"Mr. Hunt has to go back early to drill the
Rifles. Can you keep another secret?" Again
Chad nodded gravely. "Well, he is going to drive
me back. I'll tell him what a dangerous rival he
has." Chad was dumb; there was much yet for
him to learn before he could parry with a tongue
like hers.

"He's very good-looking," said Miss Jennie,
when she joined the girls, "but oh, so stupid."

Margaret turned quickly and unsuspiciously.
"Stupid! Why, he's the first man in his class."

"Oh," said Miss Jennie, with a demure smile,
"perhaps / couldn't draw him out," and Margaret
flushed to have caught the deftly tossed bait so
readily.

A moment later the Lieutenant was gathering up
the reins, with Miss Jennie by his side. He gave a
bow to Margaret, and Miss Jennie nodded to
Chad.

"Come see me when you come to town, Mr. Bu-
ford," she called, as though to an old friend, and
still Chad was dumb, though he lifted his hat
gravely.

222

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

At no time was Chad alone with Margaret, and
he was not sorry — her manner so puzzled him.
The three lads and three girls walked together
through Mrs. Dean's garden with its grass walks
and flower beds and vegetable patches surrounded
with rose bushes. At the lower edge they could see
the barn with sheep in the yard around it, and
there were the very stiles where Harry and Mar
garet had sat in state when Dan and Chad were
charging in the tournament. The thing might
never have happened for any sign from Harry or
Dan or Margaret, and Chad began to wonder if
his past or his present were a dream.

How fine this courtesy was Chad could not
realize. Neither could he know that the favor
Margaret had shown him when he was little more
than outcast he must now, as an equal, win for
himself. Miss Jennie had called him "Mr. Bu-
ford." He wondered what Margaret would call
him when he came to say good-by. She called him
nothing. She only smiled at him.

" You must come to see us soon again," she said,
graciously, and so said all the Deans.

The Major was quiet going home, and Miss
Lucy drowsed. All evening the Major was quiet.

"If a fight does come," he said, when they were
going to bed, "I reckon I'm not too old to take a
hand."

"And I reckon I'm not too young," said Chad.
223

XVIII

THE SPIRIT OF 'j6 AND THE SHADOW OF '6l

night, in the following April, there was a
great dance in Lexington. Next day the
news of Sumter came. Chad pleaded to be let off
from the dance, but the Major would not hear of
it. It was a fancy-dress ball, and the Major had
a pet purpose of his own that he wanted gratified,
and Chad had promised to aid him. That fancy
was that Chad should go in regimentals, as the
stern, old soldier on the wall, of whom the Major
swore the boy was the "spit and image." The Ma
jor himself helped Chad dress in wig, peruke,
stock, breeches, boots, spurs, cocked hat, sword,
and all. And then he led the boy down into the
parlor, where Miss Lucy was waiting for them, and
stood him up on one side of the portrait. To please
the old fellow, Chad laughingly struck the attitude
of the pictured soldier, and the Major cried:

"What'd I tell you, Lucy!" Then he advanced
and made a low bow.

"General Buford," he said, "General Washing
ton's compliments, and will General Buford plant

22J,

THE SPIRIT OF 76 AND THE SHADOW OF '61

the flag on that hill where the left wing of the
British is entrenched ?"

"Hush, Cal," said Miss Lucy, laughing.

"General Buford's compliments to General
Washington. General Buford will plant that flag
on any hill that any enemy holds against it."

The lad's face paled as the words, by some cu
rious impulse, sprang to his lips, but the unsuspect
ing Major saw no lurking significance in his man
ner, nor in what he said, and then there was a rum
ble of carriage wheels at the door.

The winter had sped swiftly. Chad had done
his work in college only fairly well, for Margaret
had been a disturbing factor. The girl was an im
penetrable mystery to him, for the past between
them was not only wiped clean — it seemed quite
gone. Once only had he dared to open his lips
about the old days, and the girl's flushed silence
made a like mistake forever impossible. He came
and went at the Deans' as he pleased. Always they
were kind, courteous, hospitable — no more, no
less, unvaryingly. During the Christmas holidays
he and Margaret had had a foolish quarrel, and it
was then that Chad took his little fling a, Sis little
world — a fling that was foolish, but harmful,
chiefly in that it took his time and his mind and his
energy from his work. He not only neglected his
studies, but he fell in with the wild young bucks of
the town, learned to play cards, took more wine

225

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

than was good for him sometimes, was on the verge
of several duels, and night after night raced home
in his buggy against the coming dawn. Though
Miss Lucy looked worried, the indulgent old Ma
jor made no protest. Indeed he was rather pleased.
Chad was sowing his wild oats — it was in the
blood, and the mood would pass. It did pass,
naturally enough, on the very day that the breach
between him and Margaret was partly healed; and
the heart of Caleb Hazel, whom Chad, for months,
had not dared to face, was made glad when the boy
came back to him remorseful and repentant — the
old Chad once more.

They were late in getting to the dance. Every
window in the old Hunt home was brilliant with
light. Chinese lanterns swung in the big yard.
The scent of early spring flowers smote the fresh
night air. Music and the murmur of nimble feet
and happy laughter swept out the wide-open doors
past which white figures flitted swiftly. Scarcely
anybody knew Chad in his regimentals, and the
Major, with the delight of a boy, led him around,
gravely presenting him as General Buford here and
there. Indeed, the lad made a noble figure with
his superb height and bearing, and he wore sword
and spurs as though born to them. Margaret was
dancing with Richard Hunt when she saw his eyes
searching for her through the room, and she gave
him a radiant smile that almost stunned him. She

226

THE SPIRIT OF 76 AND THE SHADOW OF '61

had been haughty and distant when he went to her
to plead forgiveness: she had been too hard, and
Margaret, too, was repentant.

"Why, who's that ?" asked Richard Hunt. "Oh,
yes," he added, getting his answer from Margaret's
face. " Bless me, but he's fine — the very spirit of
'76. I must have him in the Rifles."

"Will you make him a lieutenant ?" asked Mar
garet.

"Why, yes, I will," said Mr. Hunt, decisively.
"I'll resign myself in his favor, if it pleases
you."

"Oh, no, no — no one could fill your place.'

"Well, he can, I fear — and here he comes to oo
it. I'll have to retreat some time, and I suppose
I'd as well begin now." And the gallant gentle
man bowed to Chad.

"Will you pardon me, Miss Margaret? My
mother is calling me."

"You must have keen ears," said Margaret;
"your mother is upstairs."

"Yes; but she wants me. Everybody wants me,
but— " he bowed again with an imperturbable
smile and went his way.

Margaret looked demurely into Chad's eager
eyes.

"And how is the spirit of '76 ?"

"The spirit of '76 is unchanged."

"Oh, yes, he is; I scarcely knew him."
227

"But he's unchanged; he never will change."

Margaret dropped her eyes and Chad looked
around.

"I wish we could get out of here.'*

"We can," said Margaret, demurely.

"We will!" said Chad, and he made for a door,
outside which lanterns were swinging in the wind.
Margaret caught up some flimsy garment and
wound it about her pretty round throat — they call
it a "fascinator" in the South.

Chad looked down at her.

"I wish you could see yourself; I wish I could
tell you how you look."

"I have," said Margaret, "every time I passed
a mirror. And other people have told me. Mr.
Hunt did. He didn't seem to have much trou
ble."

"I wish I had his tongue."

"If you had, and nothing else, you wouldn't
have me" — Chad started as the little witch paused
a second, drawling — "leaving my friends and this
jolly dance to go out into a freezing yard and talk
to an aged Colonial who doesn't appreciate his
modern blessings. The next thing you'll be want
ing, I suppose — will be—

"You, Margaret; you — you!"

It had come at last and Margaret hardly knew
the choked voice that interrupted her. She had
turned her back to him to sit down. She paused a

228

THE SPIRIT OF 76 AND THE SHADOW OF '61

moment, standing. Her eyes closed; a slight
tremor ran through her, and she sank with her face
in her hands. Chad stood silent, trembling. Voices
murmured about them, but like the music in the
house, they seemed strangely far away. The stir
ring of the wind made the sudden damp on his
forehead icy-cold. Margaret's hands slowly left
her face, which had changed as by a miracle.
Every trace of coquetry was gone. It was the face
of a woman who knew her own heart, and had the
sweet frankness to speak it, that was lifted now to
Chad.

"I'm so glad you are what you are, Chad; but
had you been otherwise — that would have made
no difference to me. You believe that, don't you,
Chad ? They might not have let me marry you,
but I should have cared, just the same. They may
not now, but that, too, will make no difference."
She turned her eyes from his for an instant, as
though she were looking far backward. "Ever
since that day," she said, slowly, "when I heard
you say, 'Tell the little gurl I didn't mean nothin'
callin' her a little gal' ' — there was a low, de
licious gurgle in the throat as she tried to imitate
his odd speech, and then her eyes suddenly filled
with tears, but she brushed them away, smiling
brightly. "Ever since then, Chad— she

stopped — a shadow fell across the door of the little
summer house.

22Q

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Here I am, Mr. Hunt," she said, lightly; "is
this your dance ?" She rose and was gone. "Thank
you, Mr. Buford," she called back, sweetly.

For a moment Chad stood where he was, quite
dazed — so quickly, so unexpectedly had the crisis
come. The blood had rushed to his face and
flooded him with triumphant happiness. A terrible
doubt chilled him as quickly. Had he heard aright
— could he have misunderstood her ? Had the
dream of years really come true ? What was it she
had said ? He stumbled around in the half dark
ness, wondering. Was this another phase of her
unceasing coquetry ? How quickly her tone had
changed when Richard Hunt's shadow came. At
that moment, he neither could nor would have
changed a hair had some genie dropped them both
in the midst of the crowded ball-room. He turned
swiftly toward the dancers. He must see, know
— now!

The dance was a quadrille and the figure was
"Grand right and left." Margaret had met Rich
ard Hunt opposite, half-way, when Chad reached
the door and was curtseying to him with a radiant
smile. Again the boy's doubts beat him fiercely;
and then Margaret turned her head, as though she
knew he must be standing there. Her face grew
so suddenly serious and her eyes softened with
such swift tenderness when they met his, that a
wave of guilty shame swept through him. And

230

THE SPIRIT OF '76 AND THE SHADOW OF '01

when she came around to him and passed, she
leaned from the circle toward him, merry and
mock-reproachful :

"You mustn't look at me like that," she whis
pered, and Hunt, close at hand, saw, guessed and
smiled. Chad turned quickly away again.

That happy dawn — going home! The Major
drowsed and fell asleep. The first coming light,
the first cool breath that was stealing over the
awakening fields, the first spring leaves with their
weight of dew, were not more fresh and pure than
the love that was in the boy's heart. He held his
right hand in his left, as though he were imprison
ing there the memory of the last little clasp that she
had given it. He looked at the Major, and he
wondered how anybody on earth, at that hour,
could be asleep. He thought of the wasted days
of the past few months; the silly, foolish life he
had led, and thanked God that, in the memory of
them, there was not one sting of shame. How he
would work for her now! Little guessing how
proud she already was, he swore to himself how
proud she should be of him some day. He won
dered where she was, and what she was doing.
She could not be asleep, and he must have cried
aioud could he have known — could he have heard
her on her knees at her bedside, whispering his
name for the first time in her prayers; could he
have seen her, a little later, at her open window,

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

looking across the fields, as though her eyes must
reach him through the morning dusk.

That happy dawn — for both, that happy dawn!

It was well that neither, at that hour, could see
beyond the rim of his own little world. In a far
Southern city another ball, that night, had been go
ing on. Down there the air was charged with the
prescience of dark trouble, but, while the music
moaned to many a heart like a god in pain, there
was no brooding — only a deeper flush to the cheek,
a brighter sparkle to the eye, a keener wit to the
tongue; to the dance, a merrier swing. And at that
very hour of dawn, ladies, slippered, bare of head,
and in evening gowns, were fluttering like white
moths along the streets of old Charleston, and
down to the Battery, where Fort Sumter lay, gray
and quiet in the morning mist — to await with jest
and laughter the hissing shriek of one shell that
lighted the fires of a four years' hell in a happy
land of God-fearing peace and God-given plenty,
and the hissing shriek of another that Anderson,
Kentuckian, hurled back, in heroic defence of the
flag struck for the first time by other than an alien
hand.

232

XIX

THE BLUE OR THE GRAY

TN the far North, as in the far South, men had
but to drift with the tide. Among the Ken-
tuckians, the forces that moulded her sons — Davis
and Lincoln — were at war in the State, as they were
at war in the nation. By ties of blood, sympathies,
institutions, Kentucky was bound fast to the South.
Yet, ten years before, Kentuckians had demanded
the gradual emancipation of the slave. That far
back, they had carved a pledge on a block of Ken
tucky marble, which should be placed in the Wash
ington monument, that Kentucky would be the last
to give up the Union. For ten years, they had
felt the shadow of the war creeping toward them.
In the dark hours of that dismal year, before the
dawn of final decision, the men, women, and chil
dren of Kentucky talked of little else save war, and
the skeleton of war took its place in the closet of
every home from the Ohio to the crest of the Cum
berland. When the dawn of that decision came,
Kentucky spread before the world a record of in-
dependent-mindedness, patriotism, as each side saw
the word, and sacrifice that has no parallel in his-

233

tory. She sent the flower of her youth — forty
thousand strong — into the Confederacy; she lifted
the lid of her treasury to Lincoln, and in answer
to his every call, sent him a soldier, practically
without a bounty and without a draft. And when
the curtain fell on the last act of the great tragedy,
half of her manhood was behind it — helpless from
disease, wounded, or dead on the battle-field.

So, on a gentle April day, when the great news
came, it came like a sword that, with one stroke,
slashed the State in twain, shearing through the
strongest bonds that link one man to another,
whether of blood, business, politics or religion, as
though they were no more than threads of wool.
Nowhere in the Union was the National drama so
played to the bitter end in the confines of a single
State. As the nation was rent apart, so was the
commonwealth; as the State, so was the county;
as the county, the neighborhood; as the neighbor
hood, the family; and as the family, so brother
and brother, father and son. In the nation the
kinship was racial only. Brother knew not the face
of brother. There was distance between them, an
tagonism, prejudice, a smouldering dislike easily
fanned to flaming hatred. In Kentucky the broth
ers had been born in the same bed, slept in the same
cradle, played under the same roof, sat side by
side in the same schoolroom, and stood now on the
threshold of manhood arm in arm, with mutual in-

234

THE BLUE OR THE GRAY

terests, mutual love, mutual pride in family that
made clan feeling peculiarly intense. For anti-
slavery fanaticism, or honest unionism, one needed
nr>t to go to the far North; as, for imperious, hot
headed, non-interference or pure State sovereignty,
one needed not to go to the far South. They were
all there in the State, the county, the family — under
the same roof. Along the border alone did feel
ing approach uniformity — the border of Kentucky
hills. There unionism was free from prejudice as
nowhere else on the continent save elsewhere
throughout the Southern mountains. Those South
ern Yankees knew nothing about the valley aris
tocrat, nothing about his slaves, and cared as little
for one as for the other. Since '76 they had known
but one flag, and one flag only, and to that flag in
stinctively they rallied. But that the State should
be swept from border to border with horror, there
was division even here: for, in the Kentucky moun
tains, there was, here and there, a patriarch like
Joel Turner who owned slaves, and he and his sons
fought for them as he and his sons would have
fought for their horses, or their cattle, or their sheep.
It was the prescient horror of such a condition
that had no little part in the neutral stand that Ken
tucky strove to maintain. She knew what war was
— for every fireside was rich in memories that men
and women had of kindred who had fallen on num
berless battle-fields — back even to St. Clair's de-

235

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

feat and the Raisin massacre; and though she did
not fear war for its harvest of dangers and death,
she did look with terror on a conflict between neigh
bors, friends, and brothers. So she refused troops
to Lincoln; she refused them to Davis. Both
pledged her immunity from invasion, and, to en
force that pledge, she raised Home Guards as she
had already raised State Guards for internal pro
tection and peace. And there — as a State — she
stood: but the tragedy went on in the Kentucky
home — a tragedy of peculiar intensity and pathos
in one Kentucky home — the Deans'.

Harry had grown up tall, pale, studious, brood
ing. He had always been the pet of his Uncle
Brutus — the old Lion of White Hall. Visiting the
Hall, he had drunk in the poison, or consecration,
as was the point of view, of abolitionism. At the
first sign he was never allowed to go again. But
the poison had gone deep. Whenever he could he
went to hear old Brutus speak. Eagerly he heard
stories of the fearless abolitionist's hand-to-hand
fights with men who sought to skewer his fiery
tongue. Deeply he brooded on every word that his
retentive ear had caught from the old man's lips,
and on the wrongs he endured in behalf of his cause
and for freedom of speech.

One other hero did he place above him — the
great commoner after whom he had been chris
tened, Henry Clay Dean. He knew how Clay's

236

THE BLUE OR THE GRAY

life had been devoted to averting the coming war,
and how his last days had been darkly shadowed
by the belief that, when he was gone, the war must
come. At times he could hear that clarion voice
as it rang through the Senate with the bold chal
lenge to his own people that paramount was his
duty to the nation — subordinate his duty to his
State. Who can tell what the nation owed, in Ken
tucky, at least, to the passionate allegiance that
was broadcast through the State to Henry Clay ?
It was not in the boy's blood to be driven an inch,
and no one tried to drive him. In his own home he
was a spectre of gnawing anguish to his mother
and Margaret, of unspeakable bitterness and dis
appointment to his father, and an impenetrable
sphinx to Dan. For in Dan there was no shaking
doubt. He was the spirit, incarnate, of the young,
unquestioning, unthinking, generous, reckless, hot
headed, passionate South.

And Chad ? The news reached Major Buford's
farm at noon, and Chad went to the woods and
came in at dusk, haggard and spent. Miserably
now he held his tongue and tortured his brain.
Purposely, he never opened his lips to Harry Dean.
He tried to make known to the Major the struggle
going on within him, but the iron-willed old man
brushed away all argument with an impatient wave
of his hand. With Margaret he talked once, and
straightway the question was dropped like a living

237

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COMK

coal. So, Chad withdrew from his fellows. The
social life of the town, gayer than ever now,
knew him no more. He kept up his college
work, but when he was not at his books, he
walked the fields, and many a moonlit midnight
found him striding along a white turnpike, or sit
ting motionless on top of a fence along the border
of some woodland, his chin in both hands, fighting
his fight out in the cool stillness alone. He him
self little knew the unmeant significance there was
in the old Continental uniform he had worn to the
dance. Even his old rifle, had he but known it,
had been carried with Daniel Morgan from Vir
ginia to Washington's aid in Cambridge. His earli
est memories of war were rooted in thrilling stories
of King's Mountain. He had heard old men tell of
pointing deadly rifles at red-coats at New Orleans,
and had absorbed their own love of Old Hickory.
The school-master himself, when a mere lad, had
been with Scott in Mexico. The spirit of the back
woodsman had been caught in the hills, and was
alive and unchanged at that very hour. The boy
was practically born in Revolutionary days, and
that was why, like all mountaineers, Chad had lit
tle love of State and only love of country — was
first, last and all the time, simply American. It
was not reason — it was instinct. The heroes the
school-master had taught him to love and some
day to emulate, had fought under one flag, and, like

238

THE BLUE OR THE GRAY

them, the mountaineers never dreamed there could
be another. And so the boy was an unconscious
reincarnation of that old spirit, uninfluenced by
temporary apostasies in the outside world, un
touched absolutely by sectional prejudice or the ap
peal of the slave. The mountaineer had no hatred
of the valley aristocrat, because he knew nothing
of him, and envied no man what he was, what he
had, or the life he led. So, as for slavery, that
question, singularly enough, never troubled his
soul. To him slaves were hewers of wood and
drawers of water. The Lord had made them so,
and the Bible said that it was right. That the
school-master had taught Chad. He had read
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the story made him
smile. The tragedies of it he had never known
and he did not believe. Slaves were sleek, well-
fed, well-housed, loved and trusted, rightly inferior
and happy; and no aristocrat ever moved among
them with a more lordly, righteous air of author
ity than did this mountain lad who had known them
little more than half a dozen years. Unlike the
North, the boy had no prejudice, no antagonism,
no jealousy, no grievance to help him in his strug
gle. Unlike Harry, he had no slave sympathy to
stir him to the depths, no stubborn, rebellious pride
to prod him on. In the days when the school-mas
ter thundered at him some speech of the Prince of
Kentuckians, it was always the national thrill in the

239

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

fiery utterance that had shaken him even then. So
that unconsciously the boy was the embodiment of
pure Americanism, and for that reason he and the
people among whom he was born stood among the
millions on either side, quite alone.

What was he fighting then — ah, what ? If the
bed-rock of his character was not loyalty, it was
nothing. In the mountains the Turners had taken
him from the Wilderness. In the Bluegrass the
old Major had taken him from the hills. His very
life he owed to the simple, kindly mountaineers,
and what he valued more than his life he owed to
the simple gentleman who had picked him up from
the roadside and, almost without question, had
taken him to his heart and to his home. The Tur
ners, he knew, would fight for their slaves as they
would have fought Dillon or Devil had either pro
posed to take from them a cow, a hog, or a sheep.
For that Chad could not blame them. And the
Major was going to fight, as he believed, for his
liberty, his State, his country, his property, his fire
side. So in the eyes of both, Chad must be the
snake who had warmed his frozen body on their
hearthstones and bitten the kindly hands that had
warmed him back to life. What would Melissa
say ? Mentally he shrank from the fire of her eyes
and the scorn of her tongue when she should know.
And Margaret — the thought of her brought al
ways a voiceless groan. To her, he had let his

240

THE BLUE OR THE GRAY

doubts be known, and her white silence closed his
own lips then and there. The simple fact that he
had doubts was an entering wedge of coldness be
tween them that Chad saw must force them apart;
for he knew that the truth must come soon, and
what would be the bitter cost of that truth. She
could never see him as she saw Harry. Harry
was a beloved and erring brother. Hatred of
slavery had been cunningly planted in his heart
by her father's own brother, upon whose head the
blame for Harry's sin was set. The boy had
been taunted until his own father's scorn had
stirred his proud independence into stubborn re
sistance and intensified his resolution to do what
he pleased and what he thought was right. But
Chad — she would never understand him. She
would never understand his love for the Govern
ment that had once abandoned her people to
savages and forced her State and his to seek aid
from a foreign land. In her eyes, too, he would
be rending the hearts that had been tenderest to
him in all the world: and that was all. Of what
fate she would deal out to him he dared not think.
If he lifted his hand against the South, he must
strike at the heart of all he loved best, to which he
owed most. If against the Union, at the heart of
all that was best in himself. In him the pure spirit
that gave birth to the nation was fighting for life.
Ah, God! what should he do — what should he do ?

241

XX

OFF TO THE WAR

'"THROUGHOUT that summer Chad fought
his fight, daily swaying this way and that-
fought it in secret until the phantom of neutral
ity faded and gave place to the grim spectre of
war — until with each hand Kentucky drew a sword
and made ready to plunge both into her own
stout heart. When Sumter fell, she shook her
head resolutely to both North and South. Crit-
tenden, in the name of Union lovers and the dead
Clay, pleaded with the State to take no part in the
fratricidal crime. From the mothers, wives, sis
ters and daughters of thirty-one counties came
piteously the same appeal. Neutrality, to be held
inviolate, was the answer to the cry from both the
North and the South; but armed neutrality, said
Kentucky. The State had not the moral right to
secede; the Nation, no constitutional right to co
erce: if both the North and the South left their
paths of duty and fought — let both keep their bat
tles from her soil. Straightway State Guards went
into camp and Home Guards were held in reserve,
but there was not a fool in the Commonwealth who

242

OFF TO THE WAR

did not know that, in sympathy, the State Guards
were already for the Confederacy and the Home
Guards for the Union cause. This was in May.
In June, Federals were enlisting across the Ohio;
Confederates, just over the border of Dixie which
begins in Tennessee. Within a month Stonewall
Jackson sat on his horse, after Bull Run, watching
the routed Yankees, praying for fresh men that he
might go on and take the Capitol, and, from the
Federal dream of a sixty-days' riot, the North
woke with a gasp. A week or two later, Camp
Dick Robinson squatted down on the edge of the
Bluegrass, the first violation of the State's neu
trality, and beckoned with both hands for Yankee
recruits. Soon an order went round to disarm the
State Guards, and on that very day the State Guards
made ready for Dixie. On that day the crisis came
at the Deans', and on that day Chad Buford made
up his mind. When the Major and Miss Lucy went
to bed that night, he slipped out of the house and
walked through the yard and across the pike, fol
lowing the little creek half unconsciously toward
the Deans', until he could see the light in Mar
garet's window, and there he climbed the worm
fence and sat leaning his head against one of the
forked stakes with his hat in his lap. He would
probably not see her again. He would send her
word next morning to ask that he might, and he
feared what the result of that word would be. Sev-

243

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

eral times his longing eyes saw her shadow pass
the curtain, and when her light was out, he closed
his eyes and sat motionless — how long he hardly
knew; but, when he sprang down, he was stiffened
from the midnight chill and his unchanged posture.
He went back to his room then, and wrote Mar
garet a letter and tore it up and went to bed. There
was little sleep for him that night, and when the
glimmer of morning brightened at his window, he
rose listlessly, dipped his hot head in a bowl of wa
ter and stole out to the barn. His little mare whin
nied a welcome as he opened the barn door. He
patted her on the neck.

"Good-by, little girl," he said. He started to
call her by name and stopped. Margaret had
named the beautiful creature "Dixie." The ser
vants were stirring.

"Good-mawnin', Mars Chad," said each, and
with each he shook hands, saying simply that he
was going away that morning. Only old Tom
asked him a question.

"Foh Gawd, Mars Chad," said the old fellow,
"old Mars Buford can't git along widout you.
You gwine to come back soon ?"

"I don't know, Uncle Tom," said Chad, sadly,

"Whar you gwine, Mars Chad ?"

"Into the army."

"De ahmy?" The old man smiled. "You
gwine to fight de Yankees?"

244

OFF TO THE WAR

"I'm going to fight with the Yankees."

The old driver looked as though he could not
have heard aright.

"You fbolin' this ole nigger, Mars Chad, ain't
you?"

Chad shook his head, and the old man straight
ened himself a bit.

"I'se sorry to heah it, suh," he said, with dig
nity, and he turned to his work.

Miss Lucy was not feeling well that morning
and did not come down to breakfast. The boy
was so pale and haggard that the Major looked at
him anxiously.

"What's the matter with you, Chad ? Are you
sick ? "

"I didn't sleep very well last night, Major."

The Major chuckled. "I reckon you ain't get-
tin' enough sleep these days. I reckon I wouldn't,
either, if I were in your place."

Chad did not answer. After breakfast he sat
with the Major on the porch in the fresh, sunny air.
The Major smoked his pipe, taking the stem out of
his mouth now and then to shout some order as a
servant passed under his eye.

"What's the news, Chad?"

"Mr. Crittenden is back."

"What did old Lincoln say?"

"That Camp Dick Robinson was formed for
KentuckiansbyKentuckians, and he did not believe

245

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

that it was the wish of the State that it should be
removed."

"Well, by ! after his promise. What did

Davis say ?"

"That if Kentucky opened the Northern door
for invasion, she must not close the Southern door
to entrance for defence."

"And dead right he is," growled the Major with
satisfaction.

"Governor Magoffin asked Ohio and Indiana to
join in an effort for a peace Congress," Chad
added.

"Well?"

"Both governors refused."

"I tell you, boy, the hour has come."

The hour had come.

"I'm going away this morning, Major."

The Major did not even turn his head.

"I thought this was coming," he said quietly.
Chad's face grew even paler, and he steeled his
heart for the revelation.

"I've already spoken to Lieutenant Hunt," the
Major went on. "He expects to be a captain, and
he says that, maybe, he can make you a lieutenant.
You can take that boy Brutus as a body servant."
He brought his fist down on the railing of the
porch. "God, but I'd give the rest of my life to
be ten years younger than I am now."

"Major, I'm going into the Union army"
246

OFF TO THE WAR

The Major's pipe almost dropped from between
his lips. Catching the arms of his chair with both
hands, he turned heavily and with dazed wonder,
as though the boy had struck him with his fist
from behind, and, without a word, stared hard into
Chad's tortured face. The keen old eye had not
long to look before it saw the truth, and then, si
lently, the old man turned back. His hands trem
bled on the chair, and he slowly thrust them into
his pockets, breathing hard through his nose. The
boy expected an outbreak, but none came. A bee
buzzed above them. A yellow butterfly zigzagged
by. Blackbirds chattered in the firs. The screech
of a peacock shrilled across the yard, and a plough
man's singing wailed across the fields:

Trouble, O Lawd!

Nothin' but trouble in de Ian' of Canaan.

The boy knew he had given his old friend a mor
tal hurt.

"Don't, Major," he pleaded. "You don't know
how I have fought against this. I tried to be on
your side. I thought I was. I joined the Rifles.
I found first that I couldn't fight with the South,
and — then — I — found that I had to fight for the
North. It almost kills me when I think of all you
have done —

The Major waved his hand imperiously. He
was not the man to hear his favors recounted, much

247

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

less refer to them himself. He straightened and
got up from his chair. His manner had grown for
mal, stately, coldly courteous.

"I cannot understand, but you are old enough,
sir, to know your own mind. You should have pre
pared me for this. You will excuse me a moment."
Chad rose and the Major walked toward the door,
his step not very steady, and his shoulders a bit
shrunken — his back, somehow, looked suddenly
old.

"Brutus!" he called sharply to a black boy who
was training rosebushes in the yard. "Saddle Mr.
Chad's horse." Then, without looking again at
Chad, he turned into his office, and Chad, stand
ing where he was, with a breaking heart, could
hear, through the open window, the rustling of
papers and the scratching of a pen.

In a few minutes he heard the Major rise and he
turned to meet him. The old man held a roll of
bills in one hand and a paper in the other.

"Here is the balance due you on our last trade,"
he said, quietly. 'The mare is yours — Dixie," he
added, grimly. 'The old mare is in foal. I will
keep her and send you your due when the time
comes. We are quite even," he went on in a level
tone of business. "Indeed, what you have done
about the place more than exceeds any expense that
you have ever caused me. If anything, I am still
in your debt."

248

OFF TO THE WAR

"I can't take it," said Chad, choking back a sob,

"You will have to take it," the Major broke in,
curtly, "unless — " the Major held back the bit
ter speech that was on his lips and Chad under
stood. The old man did not want to feel under
any obligations to him.

"I would offer you Brutus, as was my intention,
except that I know you would not take him —
again he added, grimly, "and Brutus would run
away from you.'*

"No, Major," said Chad, sadly, "I would not
take Brutus," and he stepped down one step of the
porch backward.

"I tried to tell you, Major, but you wouldn't
listen. I don't wonder, for I couldn't explain to
you what I couldn't understand myself. I—
the boy choked and tears filled his eyes. He was
afraid to hold out his hand.

"Good-by, Major," he said, brokenly.

"Good-by, sir," answered the Major, with a
stiff bow, but the old man's lip shook and he turned
abruptly within.

Chad did not trust himself to look back, but, as
he rode through the pasture to the pike gate, his
ears heard, never to forget, the chatter of the black
birds, the noises around the barn, the cry of the
peacock, and the wailing of the ploughman:

Trouble, O Lawd!
Nothin' but trouble

240

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

At the gate the little mare turned her head
toward town and started away in the easy swinging
lope for which she was famous. From a cornfield
Jerome Conners, the overseer, watched horse and
rider for a while, and then his lips were lifted over
his protruding teeth in one of his ghastly, infre
quent smiles. Chad Buford was out of his way
at last. At the Deans' gate, Snowball was just
going in on Margaret's pony and Chad pulled up.

"Where's Mr. Dan, Snowball? — and Mr.
Harry?'*

" Mars Dan he gwine to de wah — an' I'se gwine
wid him."

"Is Mr. Harry going, too?" Snowball hesi
tated. He did not like to gossip about family mat
ters, but it was a friend ®f the family who was
questioning him.

"Yessuh! But Mammy say Mars Harry's
teched in de haid. He gwine to fight wid de po*
white trash."

"Is Miss Margaret at home?"

"Yessuh."

Chad had his note to Margaret, unsealed. He
little felt like seeing her now, but he had just as
well have it all over at once. He took it out and
looked it over once more — irresolute.

"I'm going away to join the Union army, Mar
garet. May I come to tell you good-by ? If not,,
God bless you always. CHAD."

250

The old man's lip «hook and he turned abruptly w'thi

OFF TO THE WAR

this to Miss Margaret, Snowball, and
bring me an answer here as soon as you can."

"Yessuh."

The black boy was not gone long. Chad saw
him go up the steps, and in a few moments he re
appeared and galloped back.

"Ole Mistis say dey ain't no answer."

"Thank you, Snowball." Chad- pitched him a
coin and loped on toward Lexington with his head
bent, his hands folded on the pommel, and the
reins flapping loosely. Within one mile of Lex
ington he turned into a cross-road and set his face
toward the mountains.

An hour later, the General and Harry and Dan
stood on the big portico. Inside, the mother and
Margaret were weeping in each other's arms. Two
negro boys were each leading a saddled horse from
the stable, while Snowball was blubbering at the

7 O

corner of the house. At the last moment Dan had
decided to leave him behind. If Harry could have
no servant, Dan, too, would have none. Dan was
crying without shame. Harry's face was as white
and stern as his father's. As the horses drew near
the General stretched out the sabre in his hand to
Dan.

'This should belong to you, Harry."
"It is yours to give, father," said Harry, gently.
"It shall never be drawn against my roof and
your mother."

251

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

The boy was silent,

"You are going far Nortn 5 ^sked the General,
more gently. "You will not light on Kentucky
soil?"

"You taught me that the first duty of a sol
dier is obedience. I must go where I'm or-
dered."

"God grant that you two may never meet."

"Father!" It was a cry of horror from both the
lads.

The horses were waiting at the stiles. The Gen
eral took Dan in his arms and the boy broke away
and ran down the steps, weeping.

"Father," said Harry, with trembling lips, "I
hope you won't be too hard on me. Perhaps the
day will come when you won't be so ashamed of
me. I hope you and mother will forgive me. I
can't do otherwise than I must. Will you shake
hands with me, father?"

"Yes, my son. God be with you both."

And then, as he watched the boys ride side by
side to the gate, he added:

"I could kill my own brother with my own hand
for this."

He saw them stop a moment at the gate; saw
them clasp hands and turn opposite ways — one
with his face set for Tennessee, the other making
for the Ohio. Dan waved his cap in a last sad
good-by. Harry rode over the hill without turn-

252

OFF TO THE WAR

ing his head. The General stood rigid, with his
hands clasped behind his back, staring across the
gray fields between them. Through the window
came the low sound of sobbing.

253

XXI

MELISSA

OHORTLY after dusk, that night, two or three
wagons moved quietly out of Lexington, un
der a little guard with guns loaded and bayonets
fixed. Back at the old Armory — the home of the
" Rifles" — a dozen youngsters drilled vigorously
with faces in a broad grin, as they swept under
the motto of the company — "Our laws the com
mands of our Captain." They were following
out those commands most literally. Never did
Lieutenant Hunt give his orders more sonorously
— he could be heard for blocks away. Never did
young soldiers stamp out manoeuvres more lustily
— they made more noise than a regiment. Not a
man carried a gun, though ringing orders to
"Carry arms" and "Present arms" made the win
dows rattle. It was John Morgan's first ruse.
While that mock-drill was going on, and listening
Unionists outside were laughing to think how
those Rifles were going to be fooled next day, the
guns of the company were moving in those wag
ons toward Dixie — toward mocking-bird-haunted
Bowling Green, where the underfed, unclothed,

254

MELISSA

unarmed body of Albert Sydney Johnston's army
lay, with one half-feathered wing stretching into
the Cumberland hills and the frayed edge of the
other touching the Ohio.

Next morning, the Home Guards came gayly
around to the Armory to seize those guns, and the
wily youngsters left temporarily behind (they, too,
fled for Dixie, that night) gibed them unmerci
fully; so that, then and there, a little interchange
of powder-and-ball civilities followed; and thus,
on the very first day, Daniel Dean smelled the one
and heard the other whistle right harmlessly and
merrily. Straightway, more guards were called
out; cannon were planted to sweep the principal
streets, and from that hour the old town was un
der the rule ef a Northern or Southern sword for
the four years' reign of the war.

Meanwhile, Chad Buford was giving a strange
journey to Dixie. Whenever he dismounted,
she would turn her head toward the Bluegrass,
as though it surely were time they were start
ing for home. When they reached the end o£
the turnpike, she lifted her feet daintily along
the muddy road, and leaped pools of water like
a cat. Climbing the first foot-hills, she turned her
beautiful head to right and left, and with pointed1
ears snorted now and then at the strange dark
woods on either side and the tumbling water-falls.
The red of her wide nostrils was showing wheru

255

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

she reached the top of the first mountain, and
from that high point of vantage she turned her
wondering eyes over the wide rolling stretch that
waved homeward, and whinnied with distinct un
easiness when Chad started her down into the wil
derness beyond. Distinctly that road was no path
for a lady to tread, but Dixie was to know it better
in the coming war.

Within ten miles of the Turners', Chad met the
first man that he knew — Hence Sturgill from
Kingdom Come. He was driving a wagon.

"Howdye, Hence!" said Chad, reining in.

"Whoa!" said Hence, pulling in and staring at
Chad's horse and at Chad from hat to spur.

"Don't you know me, Hence ?"

"Well, God— I— may— die, if it ain't Chad!
How *.:r ye, Chad ? Coin' up to ole Joel's ?"

"Yes. How are things on Kingdom Ccme?"

Hence spat on the ground and raised one hand
high over his head:

"God — I — may — die, if thar hain't hell to pay
on Kingdom Come. You better keep off o' King
dom Come," and then he stopped with an expres
sion of quick alarm, looked around him into the
bushes and dropped his voice to a whisper:

"But I hain't sayin' a word — rickollect now —
not a word!"

Chad laughed aloud. "What's the matter with
you, Hence ?"

256

MELISSA

Hence put one finger on one side of his nose —
still speaking in a low tone:

"Whut'd I say, Chad? D'l say one word?'*
He gathered up his reins. "You rickollect Jake
and Jerry Dillon?" Chad nodded. "You know
Jerry was al'ays a-runnin' over Jake 'cause Jake
didn't have good sense. Jake was drapped when
he was a baby. Well, Jerry struck Jake over the
head with a fence-rail 'bout two months ago, an*
when Jake come to, he had just as good sense as
anybody, and now he hates Jerry like pizen, an'
Jerry's half afeard of him. An' they do say as
how them two brothers air a-goin'- Again

Hence stopped abruptly and clucked to his team.
"But I ain't a-sayin' a word, now, mind ye — not
a word!"

Chad rode on, amused, and thinking that Hence
had gone daft, but he was to learn better. A reign
of forty years' terror was starting in those hills.

Not a soul was in sight when he reached the
top of the hill from which he could see the Tur
ner home below — about the house or the orchard
or in the fields. No one answered his halloo at
the Turner gate, though Chad was sure that he
saw a woman's figure flit past the door. It was
a full minute before Mother Turner cautiously
thrust her head outside the door and peered at him.

"Why, Aunt Betsey," called Chad, "don't you
know me ? "

257

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

At the sound of his voice Melissa sprang out
the door with a welcoming cry, and ran to him,
Mother Turner following with a broad smile on
her kind old face. Chad felt the tears almost
come — these were friends indeed. How tall Me
lissa had grown, and how lovely she was, with her
tangled hair and flashing eyes and delicately mod
elled face. She went with him to the stable to help
him put up his horse, blushing when he looked at
her and talking very little, while the old mother,
from the fence, followed him with her dim eyes.
At once Chad began to ply both with questions—
where was Uncle Joel and the boys and the school
master ? And, straightway, Chad felt a reticence
in both — a curious reticence even with him. On
each side of the fireplace, on each side of the door,
and on each side of the window, he saw narrow
blocks fixed to the logs. One was turned horizon
tal, and through the hole under it Chad saw day
light — portholes they were. At the door were
oaken blocks as catches for a piece of upright
wood nearby, which was plainly used to bar the
door. The cabin was a fortress. By degrees the
story came out. The neighborhood was in a tur
moil of bloodshed and terror. Tom and Dolph
had gone off to the war — Rebels. Old Joel had
'been called to the door one night, a few weeks since,
and had been shot down without warning. They
had fought all night. Melissa herself had handled

MELISSA

a rifle at one of the portholes. Rube was out in
the woods now, with Jack guarding and taking
care of his wounded father. A Home Guard had
been organized, and Daws Dillon was captain.
They were driving out of the mountains every
man who owned a negro, for nearly every man
who owned a negro had taken, or was forced to
take, the Rebel side. The Dillons were all Yan
kees, except Jerry, who had gone off with Tom;
and the giant brothers, Rebel Jerry and Yankee
Jake — as both were already known — had sworn to
kill each other on sight. Bushwhacking had al
ready begun. When Chad asked about the school
master, the old woman's face grew stern, and
Melissa's lip curled with scorn.

"Yankee!" The girl spat the word out with
such vindictive bitterness that Chad's face turned
slowly scarlet, while the girl's keen eyes pierced
him like a knife, and narrowed as, with pale face
and heaving breast, she rose suddenly from her
chair and faced him — amazed, bewildered, burn
ing with sudden hatred. "And you're another!'*
The girl's voice was like a hiss.

"Why, 'Lissy!" cried the old mother, startled,
horrified.

"Look at him!" said the girl. The old woman
looked; her face grew hard and frightened, and
she rose feebly, moving toward the girl as though
for protection against him. Chad's very heart

2.59

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

seemed suddenly to turn to water. He had been
dreading the moment to come when he must tell.
He knew it would be hard, but he was not looking
for this.

"You better git away!" quavered the old worn™
an, "afore Joel and Rube come in."

"Hush!" said the girl, sharply, her hands
clinched like claws, her whole body stiff, like a
tigress ready to attack, or awaiting attack.

"Mebbe he come hyeh to find out whar they air
—don't tell him!"

"Lissy!" said Chad, brokenly.

"Then whut did you come fer?"

"To tell you good-by, I came to see all of you,
Lissy."

The girl laughed scornfully, and Chad knew he
was helpless. He could not explain, and they could
not understand — nobody had understood.

"Aunt Betsey," he said, "you took Jack and me
in, and you took care of me just as though I had
been your own child. You know I'd give my life
for you or Uncle Joel, or any one of the boys" —
his voice grew a little stern — "and you know it,
too, Lissy —

"You're makin* things wuss," interrupted the
girl, stridently, "an* now you're goin' to do all
you can to kill us. I reckon you can see that door.
Why don't you go over to the Dillons ? " she
panted. "They're friends o* your'n. An* don't

260

MELISSA

let Uncle Joel or Rube ketch you anywhar round
hyeh ! "

"I'm not afraid to see Uncle Joel or Rube,
Lissy."

"You must git away, Chad," quavered the old
woman. "They mought hurt ye!"

"I'm sorry not to see Jack. He's the only
friend I have now."

"Why, Jack would snarl at ye," said the girl,
bitterly. "He hates a Yankee." She pointed
again with her ringer. "I reckon you can see that
door."

They followed him, Melissa going on the porch
and the old woman standing in the doorway. On
one side of the walk Chad saw a rose-bush that he
had brought from the Bluegrass for Melissa. It
was dying. He took one step toward it, his foot
sinking in the soft earth where the girl had evi
dently been working around it, and broke off the
one green leaf that was left.

"Here, Lissy! You'll be sorry you were so
hard on me. I'd never get over it if I didn't
think you would. Keep this, won't you, and let's
be friends, not enemies."

He held it out, and the girl angrily struck the
rose-leaf from his hand to her feet.

Chad rode away at a walk. Two hundred
yards below, where the hill rose, the road was
hock-deep with sand, and Dixie's feet were as

261

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

noiseless as a cat's. A few yards beyond a ravine
on the right, a stone rolled from the bushes into
the road. Instinctively Chad drew rein, and Dixie
stood motionless. A moment later, a crouching
figure, with a long squirrel rifle, slipped out of the
bushes and started noiselessly across the ravine.
Chad's pistol flashed.

"Stop!"

The figure crouched more, and turned a terror-
stricken face — Daws Dillon's.

"Oh, it's you, is it? Well, drop that gun and
come down here."

The Dillon boy rose, leaving his gun on the
ground, and came down, trembling.

"What' re you doin' sneaking around in the
brush?"

"Nothin'!" The Dillon had to make two ef
forts before he could speak at all. "Nothin', jes*
a-huntin'!"

"Huntin'I" repeated Chad. He lowered his
pistol and looked at the sorry figure silently.

"I know what you were huntin', you rattle
snake! I understand you are captain of the Home
Guard. I reckon you don't know that nobody has
to go into this war. That a man has the right to
stay peaceably at home, and nobody has the right
to bother him. If you don't know it, I tell you
now. I believe you had something to do with
shooting Uncle Joel."

262

MELISSA

The Dillon shook his head, and fumbled with
his hands.

"If I knew it, I'd kill you where you stand,
now. But I've got one word to say to you, you
hell-pup. I hate to think it, but you and I are on
the same side — that is, if you have any side. But
in spite of that, if I hear of any harm happening
to Aunt Betsey, or Melissa, or Uncle Joel, or
Rube, while they are all peaceably at home, I'm
goin' to hold you and Tad responsible, whether
you are or not, and I'll kill you" — he raised one
hand to make the Almighty a witness to his oath

"I'll kill you, if I have to follow you both to
hell for doin' it. Now, you take keer of 'em!
Turn 'round!"

The Dillon hesitated.

'Turn!" Chad cried, savagely, raising his pis
tol. "Go back to that gun, an' if you turn your
head I'll shoot you where you're sneakin' aroun'
to shoot Rube or Uncle Joel — in the back, you
cowardly feist. Pick up that gun! Now, let her
off! See if you can hit that beech-tree in front of
you. Just imagine that it's me."

The rifle cracked and Chad laughed.

"Well, you ain't much of a shot. I reckon you
must have chills and fever. Now, come back here.
Give me your powder-horn. You'll find it on top
of the hill on the right-hand side of the road.
Now, you trot — home!"

263

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

The Dillon stared.

"Double-quick!" shouted Chad. "You ought
to know what that means if you are a soldier — a
soldier!" he repeated, contemptuously.

The Dillon disappeared on a run.

Chad rode all that night. At dawn he reached
the foot-hills, and by noon he drew up at the road
which turned to Camp Dick Robinson. He sat
there a long time thinking, and then pushed on
toward Lexington. If he could, he would keep
from fighting on Kentucky soil.

Next morning he was going at an easy "run
ning-walk" along the old Maysville road toward
the Ohio. Within three miles of Major Buford's,
he leaped the fence and stiuck across the fields
that he might go around and avoid the risk of a
painful chance meeting with his old friend or any
of the Deans.

What a land of peace and plenty it was — the
woodlands, meadows, pasture lands! Fat cattle
raised their noses from the thick grass and looked
with mild inquiry at him. Sheep ran bleating
toward him, as though he were come to salt them.
A rabbit leaped from a thorn-bush and whisked
his white flag into safety in a hemp-field. Squirrels
barked in the big oaks, and a covey of young quail
fluttered up from a fence corner and sailed bravely
away. 'Possum signs were plentiful, and on the
edge of the creek he saw a coon solemnly search-

264

MELISSA

ing under a rock with one paw for crawfish.
Every now and then Dixie would turn her head
impatiently to the left, for she knew where home
was. The Deans' house was just over the hill;
he would have but the ride to the top to see it and,
perhaps, Margaret. There was no need. As he sat
looking up the hill, Margaret herself rode slowly
over it, and down, through the sunlight slanting
athwart the dreaming woods, straight toward him.
Chad sat still. Above him the road curved, and
she could not see him until she turned the little
thicket just before him. Her pony was more
startled than was she. A little leap of color to
her face alone showed her surprise.

"Did you get my note ?"

"I did. You got my mother's message ?"

"I did." Chad paused. "That is why I am
passing around you."

The girl said nothing.

"But I'm glad I came so near. I wanted to see
you once more. I wish I could make you under
stand. But nobody understands. I hardly un
derstand myself. But please try to believe that
what I say is true. I'm just back from the
mountains, and listen, Margaret — " He halted
a moment to steady his voice. "The Turners
down there took me in when I was a ragged
outcast. They clothed me, fed me, educated
me. The Major took me when I was little

265

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

more; and he fed me, clothed me, educated me.
The Turners scorned me — Melissa told me to go
herd with the Dillons. The Major all but turned
me from his door. Your father was bitter toward
me, thinking that I had helped turn Harry to the
Union cause. But let me tell you! If the Tur
ners died, believing me a traitor; if Lissy died with
a curse on her lips for me; if the Major died with
out, as he believed, ever having polluted his lips
again with my name; if Harry were brought back
here dead, and your father died, believing that
his blood was on my hands; and if I lost you and
your love, and you died, believing the same thing
—I must still go. Oh, Margaret, I can't under
stand — I have ceased to reason. I only know I
must go!"

The girl in the mountains had let her rage and
scorn loose like a storm, but the gentlewoman only
grew more calm. Every vestige of color left her,
but her eyes never for a moment wavered from
his face. Her voice was quiet and even and pas
sionless:

"Then, why don't you go ?"

The lash of an overseer's whip across his face
could not have made his soul so bleed. Even then
he did not lose himself.

"I am in your way," he said, quietly. And
backing Dixie from the road, and without bend-

266

MELISSA

ing his head or lowering his eyes, he waited, hat
in hand, for Margaret to pass.

All that day Chad rode, and, next morning,
Dixie climbed the Union bank of the Ohio and
trotted into the recruiting camp of the Fourth
Ohio Cavalry. The first man Chad saw was
Harry Dean — grave, sombre, taciturn, though he
smiled and thrust out his hand eagerly. Chad's
eyes dropped to the sergeant's stripes on Harry's
sleeves, and again Harry smiled.

" You'll have 'em yourself in a week. These
fellows ride like a lot of meal-bags over here.
Here's my captain," he added, in a lower voice.

A pompous officer rode slowly up. He pulled
in his horse when he saw Chad.

"You want to join the army?"

"Yes," said Chad.

"All right. That's a fine horse you've got.'*

Chad said nothing.

"What's his name?"

"Her name is Dixie."

The captain stared. Some soldiers behind
laughed in a smothered fashion, sobering their
faces quickly when the captain turned upon them,
furious.

"Well, change her name!"

"I'll not change her name," said Chad, quietly.
267

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"What!" shouted the officer. "How dare
you — " Chad's eyes looked ominous.

"Don't you give any orders to me — not yet.
You haven't the right; and when you have, you
can save your breath by not giving that one. This
horse comes from Kentucky, and so do I; her
name will stay Dixie as long as I straddle her, and
I propose to straddle her until one of us dies, or"
— he smiled and nodded across the river — "some
body over there gets her who won't object to her
name as much as you do."

The astonished captain's lips opened, but a quiet
voice behind interrupted him:

"Never mind, Captain." Chad turned and saw
a short, thick-set man with a stubbly brown beard,
whose eyes were twinkling, though his face was
grave. "A boy who wants to fight for the Union,
and insists on calling his horse Dixie, must be all
right. Come with me, my lad."

As Chad followed, he heard the man saluted
as Colonel Grant, but he paid no heed. Few peo
ple at that time did pay heed to the name of
Ulysses Grant.

268

XXII

MORGAN'S MEN

13OOTS and saddles at daybreak!
"^^ Over the border, in Dixie, two videttes in
gray trot briskly from out a leafy woodland, side
by side, and looking with keen eyes right and left;
one, erect, boyish, bronzed; the other, slouching,
bearded, huge — the boy, Daniel Dean; the man,
Rebel Jerry Dillon, one of the giant twins.

Fifty yards behind them emerges a single picket;
after him come three more videttes, the same dis
tance apart. Fifty yards behind the last rides "the
advance" — a guard of twenty-five picked men.
No commission among "Morgan's Men" was
more eagerly sought than a place on that guard
of hourly risk and honor. Behind it trot still three
more videttes, at intervals of one hundred yards,
and just that interval behind the last of these ride
Morgan's Men, the flower of Kentucky's youth,
in columns of fours — Colonel Hunt's regiment in
advance, the colors borne by Renfrew the Silent
in a brilliant Zouave jacket studded with buttons
of red coral. In the rear rumble two Parrot guns,
afFectionately christened the "Bull Pups."

269

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Skirting the next woodland ran a cross-road.
Down one way gallops Dan, and down the other
lumbers Rebel Jerry, each two hundred yards. A
cry rings from vidette to vidette behind them and
back to the guard. Two horsemen spur from the
"advance" and take the places of the last two
videttes, while the videttes in front take and keep
the original formation until the column passes
that cross-road, when Dean and Dillon gallop up
to their old places in the extreme front again. Far
in front, and on both flanks, are scouting parties,
miles away.

This was the way Morgan marched.

Yankees ahead! Not many, to be sure — no
more numerous than two or three to one; so back
fall the videttes and forward charges that advance
guard like a thunderbolt, not troubling the column
behind. Wild yells, a clattering of hoofs, the
crack of pistol-shots, a wild flight, a merry chase,
a few riderless horses gathered in from the fleeing
Yankees, and the incident is over.

Ten miles more, and many hostile bayonets
gleam ahead. A serious fight, this, perhaps — so
back drops the advance, this time as a reserve; up
gallops the column into single rank and dismounts,
while the flank companies, deploying as skirmish
ers, cover the whole front, one man out of each
set of fours and the corporals holding the horses
in the rear. The "Bull Pups" bark and the Rebel

270

MORGAN'S MEN

yell rings as the line — the files two yards apart —
"a long flexible line curving forward at each ex
tremity" — slips forward at a half run. This time
the Yankees charge.

From every point of that curving line pours a
merciless fire, and the charging men in blue recoil
—all but one. (War is full of grim humor.)
On comes one lone Yankee, hatless, red-headed,
pulling on his reins with might and main, his horse
beyond control, and not one of the enemy shoots
as he sweeps helplessly into their line. A huge
rebel grabs his bridle-rein.

"I don't know whether to kill you now," he
says, with pretended ferocity, "or wait till the
fight is over."

"For God's sake, don't kill me at all!*' shouts
the Yankee. "I'm a dissipated character, and not
prepared to die."

Shots from the right flank and rear, and that
line is thrown about like a rope. But the main
body of the Yankees is to the left.

"Left face! Double-quick!" is the ringing
order, and, by magic, the line concentrates in a
solid phalanx and sweeps forward.

This was the way Morgan fought.

And thus, marching and fighting, he went his
triumphant way into the land of the enemy, with
out sabres, without artillery, without even the
"Bull Pups," sometimes — fighting infantry, cav-

271

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

airy, artillery with only muzzle-loading rifles, pis
tols, and shotguns; scattering Home Guards like
turkeys; destroying railroads and bridges; taking
towns and burning Government stores, and encom
passed, usually, with forces treble his own.

This was what Morgan did on a raid, was what
he had done, what he was starting out now to do
again.

Darkness threatens, and the column halts to
bivouac for the night on the very spot where,
nearly a year before, Morgan's Men first joined
Johnston's army, which, like a great, lean, hungry
hawk, guarded the Southern border.

Daniel Dean was a war-worn veteran now. He
could ride t.venty hours out of the twenty-four; he
could sleep in his saddle or anywhere but on
picket duty, and there was no trick of the trade in
camp, or on the march, that was not at his finger's
end.

Fire first! Nobody had a match, the leaves
were wet and the twigs sobby, but by some magic
a tiny spark glows under some shadowy figure,
bites at the twigs, snaps at the branches, and wraps
a log in flames.

Water next! A tin cup rattles in a bucket, and
another shadowy figure steals off into the dark
ness, with an instinct as unerring as the skill of a
water-witch with a willow wand. The Yankees
chose open fields for camps, but your rebel took

272

MORGAN'S MEN

to the woods. Each man and his chum picked a
tree for a home, hung up canteens and spread
blankets at the foot of it. Supper — Heavens,
what luck — fresh beef! One man broils it on
coals, pinning pieces of fat to it to make gravy;
another roasts it on a forked stick, for Morgan
carried no cooking utensils on a raid.

Here, one man made up bread in an oilcloth
(and every Morgan's man had one soon after they
were issued to the Federals); another worked up
corn-meal into dough in the scooped-out half of a
pumpkin; one baked bread on a flat rock, another
on a board, while a third had twisted his dough
around his ram-rod; if it were spring-rime, a fourth
might be fitting his into a cornshuck to roast in
ashes. All this Dan Dean could do.

The roaring fire thickens the gloom of the
woods where the lonely pickets stand. Pipes are
out now. An oracle outlines the general cam
paign of the war as it will be and as it should
have been. A long-winded, innocent braggart
tells of his personal prowess that day. A little
group is guying the new recruit. A wag shaves
a bearded comrade on one side of his face, pock
ets his razor and refuses to shave the other side.
A poet, with a bandaged eye, and hair like a wind
blown hay-stack, recites "I am dying, Egypt —
dying," and then a pure, clear, tenor voice starts
through the forest-aisles, and there is sudden si-

273

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

lence. Every man knows that voice, and loves the
boy who owns it — little Tom Morgan, Dan's
brother-in-arms, the General's seventeen-year-old
brother — and there he stands leaning against a
tree, full in the light of the fire, a handsome, gal
lant figure — a song like a seraph's pouring from
his lips. One bearded soldier is gazing at him
with curious intentness, and when the song ceases,
lies down with a suddenly troubled face. He has
seen the "death-look" in the boy's eyes — that
prophetic death-look in which he has unshaken
faith. The night deepens, figures roll up in blan
kets, quiet comes, and Dan lies wide awake and
deep in memories, and looking back on those early
helpless days of the war with a tolerant smile.

He was a war-worn veteran now, but how viv
idly he could recall that first night in the camp of
a big army, in the very woods where he now lay
• — dusk settling over the Green River country,
which Morgan's Men grew to love so well; a
mocking-bird singing a farewell song from the
top of a stunted oak to the dead summer and the
dying day; Morgan seated on a cracker-box in
front of his tent, contemplatively chewing one end
of his mustache; Lieutenant Hunt swinging from
his horse, smiling grimly.

"It would make a horse laugh — a Yankee cav
alry horse, anyhow — to see this army."

Hunt had been over the camp that first after-
274

MORGAN'S MEN

noon on a personal tour of investigation. There
were not a thousand Springfield and Enfield rifles
at that time in Johnston's army. Half of the sol
diers were armed with shotguns and squirrel rifles,
and the greater part of the other half with flint
lock muskets. But nearly every man, thinking he
was in for a rough-and-tumble fight, had a bowie-
knife and a revolver swung to his belt.

"Those Arkansas and Texas fellows have got
knives that would make a Malay's blood run
cold."

''Well, they'll do to hew firewood and cut
meat," laughed Morgan.

The troops were not only badly armed. On
his tour, Hunt had seen men making blankets of a
piece of old carpet, lined on one side with a piece
of cotton cloth; men wearing ox-hide buskins, or
complicated wrapping of rags, for shoes; orderly
sergeants making out reports on shingles; surgeons
using a twisted handkerchief instead of a tourni
quet. There was a total lack of medicine, and
camp diseases were already breaking out — measles,
typhoid fever, pneumonia, bowel troubles — each
fatal, it seemed, in time of war.

"General Johnston has asked Richmond for a
stand of thirty thousand arms," Morgan had
mused, and Hunt looked up inquiringly.

"Mr. Davis can only spare a thousand."

"That's lucky," said Hunt, grimly.

275

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

And then the military organization of that
army, so characteristic of the Southerner! An
officer who wanted to be more than a colonel, and
couldn't be a brigadier, would have a "legion" —
a hybrid unit between a regiment and a brigade.
Sometimes there was a regiment whose roll-call
was more than two thousand men, so popular was
its colonel. Companies would often refuse to
designate themselves by letter, but by the thrilling
titles they had given themselves. How Morgan
and Hunt had laughed over "The Yellow Jack
ets," "The Dead Shots," "The Earthquakes,"
'The Chickasha Desperadoes," and "The Hell
Roarers"! Regiments would bear the names of
their commanders — a singular instance of the
Southerner's passion for individuality, as a man,
a company, a regiment, or a brigade. And there
was little or no discipline, as the word is under
stood among the military elect, and with no army
that the world has ever seen, Richard Hunt al
ways claimed, was there so little need of it. For
Southern soldiers, he argued, were, from the start,
obedient, zealous, and tolerably patient, from good
sense and a strong sense of duty. They were born
fighters; a spirit of emulation induced them to
learn the drill; pride and patriotism kept them
true and patient to the last, but they could not be
made, by punishment or the fear of it, into ma
chines. They read their chance of success, not in

276

MORGAN'S MEN

opposing numbers, but in the character and repu
tation of their commanders, who, in turn, believed,
as a rule, that "the unthinking automaton, formed
by routine and punishment, could no more stand
before the high-strung young soldier with brains
and good blood, and some practice and knowledge
of warfare, than a tree could resist a stroke of
lightning." So that with Southern soldiers disci
pline came to mean "the pride which made soldiers
learn their duties rather than incur disgrace; the
subordination that came from self-respect and re
spect for the man whom they thought worthy to
command them."

Boots and saddles again at daybreak! By noon
the column reached Green River, over the Ken
tucky line, where Morgan, even on his way down
to join Johnston, had begun the operations which
were to make him famous. No picket duty that
infantry could do as well, for Morgan's cavalry!
He wanted it kept out on the front or the flanks
of an army, and as close as possible upon the
enemy. Right away, there had been thrilling
times for Dan in the Green River country — set
ting out at dark, chasing countrymen in Federal
pay or sympathy, prowling all night around and
among pickets and outposts; entrapping the un
wary; taking a position on the line of retreat at
daybreak, and turning leisurely back to camp
with prisoners and information. How memories

277

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

thronged! At this very turn of the road, Dan
remembered, they had their first brush with the
enemy. No plan of battle had been adopted,
other than to hide on both sides of the road and
send their horses to the rear.

" I think we ought to charge 'em," said Georgie
Forbes, Chad's old enemy. Dan saw that his lip
trembled, and, a moment later, Georgie, mutter
ing something, disappeared.

The Yankees had come on, and, discovering
them, halted. Morgan himself stepped out in the
road and shot the officer riding at the head of the
column. His men fell back without returning the
fire, deployed and opened up. Dan recognized
the very tree behind which he had stood, and again
he could almost hear Richard Hunt chuckling
from behind another close by.

"We would be in bad shape," said Richard
Hunt, as the bullets whistled high overhead, "if
we were in the tops of these trees instead of be
hind them." There had been no manoeuvring, no
command given among the Confederates. Each
man fought his own fight. In ten minutes a horse-
holder ran up from the rear, breathless, and an
nounced that the Yankees were flanking. Every
man withdrew, straightway, after his own fash
ion, and in his own time. One man was wounded
and several were shot through the clothes.

"That was like a camp-meeting or an elec-
278

MORGAN'S MEN

tion row," laughed Morgan, when they were in
camp.

"Or an affair between Austrian and Italian out
posts," said Hunt.

A chuckle rose behind them. A lame colonel
was limping past.

"I got your courier," he said.

"I sent no courier," said Morgan.

"It was Forbes who wanted to charge 'em,"
said Dan.

Again the Colonel chuckled.

'The Yankees ran when you did," he said, and
limped, chuckling, away.

But it was great fun, those moonlit nights, burn
ing bridges and chasing Home Guards who would
flee fifteen or twenty miles sometimes to "rally."
Here was a little town through which Dan and
Richard Hunt had marched with nine prisoners in
a column — taken by them alone — and a captured
United States flag, flying in front, scaring Con
federate sympathizers and straggling soldiers, as
Hunt reported, horribly. Dan chuckled at the
memory, for the prisoners were quartered with
different messes, and, that night, several bottles of
sparkling Catawba happened, by some mystery, to
be on hand. The prisoners were told that this was
regularly issued by their commissaries, and there
upon they plead, with tears, to be received into
the Confederate ranks.

279

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

This kind of service was valuable training for
Morgan's later work. Slight as it was, it soon
brought him thirty old, condemned artillery-horses
—Dan smiled now at the memory of those ancient
chargers — which were turned over to Morgan to
be nursed until they would bear a mount, and, by
and by, it gained him a colonelcy and three com
panies, superbly mounted and equipped, which,
as "Morgan's Squadron," became known far and
near. Then real service began.

In January, the right wing of Johnston's hun
gry hawk had been broken in the Cumberland
Mountains. Early in February, Johnston had
withdrawn it from Kentucky before Buell's hosts,
with its beak always to the foe. By the middle
of the month, Grant had won the Western border
States to the Union, with the capture of Fort
Donelson. In April, the sun of Shiloh rose and
set on the failure of the first Confederate aggressive
campaign at the West; and in that fight Dan saw
his first real battle, and Captain Hunt was wound
ed. In May, Buell had pushed the Confederate
lines south and east toward Chattanooga. To re
tain a hold on the Mississippi valley, the Confed
erates must make another push for Kentucky, and
it was this great Southern need that soon put John
Morgan's name on the lips of every rebel and
Yankee in the middle South. In June, provost-
marsh^V were appointed in every county in Ken-

280

MORGAN'S MEN

tucky; the dogs of war began to be turned loose
on the "secesh sympathizers" throughout the State;
and Jerome Conners, overseer, began to render
sly service to the Union cause.

For it was in June that Mofgan paid his first
memorable little visit to the Blu< grass, and Daniel
Dean wrote his brother Harry tl e short tale of the
raid.

"We left Dixie with nine huftv'red men," the
letter ran, "and got back in twenty- four days with
twelve hundred. Travelled over one thousand
miles, captured seventeen towns, destroyed all
Government supplies and arms in thvVis, scattered
fifteen hundred Home Guards, and paccled twelve
hundred regular troops. Lost of the ongCnal nine
hundred, in killed, wounded, and missing, about
ninety men. How's that ? We kept twenty thou
sand men busy guarding Government posts or
chasing us, and we're going back often. Oh,
Harry, I am glad that you are with Grant."

But Harry was not with Grant — not now.
While Morgan was marching up from Dixie to
help Kirby Smith in the last great effort that the
Confederacy was about to make to win Kentucky — •
down from the yellow river marched the Fourth
Ohio Cavalry to go into camp at Lexington; and
with it marched Chadwick Buford and Harry Dean,
who, too, were veterans now — who, too, were go
ing home. Both lads wore a second lieutenant's

281

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

empty shoulder-straps, which both yet meant to
fill with bars, but Chad's promotion had not come
as swiftly as Harry had predicted; the Captain,
whose displeasure he had incurred, prevented that.
It had come, in time, however, and with one leap
he had landed, after Shiloh, at Harry's side. In
the beginning, young Dean had wanted to go to
the Army of the Potomac, as did Chad, but one
quiet word from the taciturn colonel with the
stubbly reddish-brown beard and the perpetual
black cigar kept both where they were.

"Though," said Grant to Chad, as his eye ran
over beautiful Dixie from tip of nose to tip of
tail, and came back to Chad, slightly twinkling,
"I've a great notion to put you in the infantry
just to get hold of that horse."

So it was no queer turn of fate that had soon sent
both the lads to help hold Zollicoffer at Cumber
land Gap, that stopped them at Camp Dick Rob
inson to join forces with Wolford's cavalry, and
brought Chad face to face with an old friend.
Wolford's cavalry was gathered from the moun
tains and the hills, and when some scouts came in
that afternoon, Chad, to his great joy, saw, mounted
on a gaunt sorrel, none other than his old school
master, Caleb Hazel, who, after shaking hands
with both Harry and Chad, pointed silently at a
great, strange figure following him on a splendid
horse some fifty yards behind. The man wore a

282

MORGAN'S MEN

slouch hat, tow linen breeches, home-made sus
penders, a belt with two pistols, and on his naked
heels were two huge Texan spurs. Harry broke
into a laugh, and Chad's puzzled face cleared
when the man grinned; it was Yankee Jake Dil
lon, one of the giant twins. Chad looked at him
curiously; that blow on the head that his brother,
Rebel Jerry, had given him, had wrought a mir
acle. The lips no longer hung apart, but were set
firmly, and the eye was almost keen; the face was
still rather stupid, but not foolish — and it was
still kind. Chad knew that, somewhere in the
Confederate lines, Rebel Jerry was looking for
Jake, as Yankee Jake, doubtless, was now looking
for Jerry, and he began to think that it might be
well for Jerry if neither was ever found. Daws
Dillon, so he learned from Caleb Hazel and Jake,
was already making his name a watchword of ter
ror along the border of Virginia and Tennessee,
and was prowling, like a wolf, now and then,
along the edge of the Bluegrass. Old Joel Tur
ner had died of his wound, Rube had gone off to
the war and Mother Turner and Melissa were
left at home, alone.

"Daws fit fust on one side and then on t'other,"
said Jake, and then he smiled in a way that Chad
understood; "an* sence you was down thar last,
Daws don't seem to hanker much atter meddlin'
with the Turners, though the two women did have

283

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

to run over into Virginny, once in a while. Me-
lissy," he added, "was a-goin* to marry Dave
Hilton, so folks said; and he reckoned they'd al
ready hitched most likely, sence Chad thar—

A flash from Chad's eyes stopped him, and
Chad, seeing Harry's puzzled face, turned away.
He was glad that Melissa was going to marry —
yes, he was glad; and how he did pray that she
might be happy!

Fighting Zollicoffer, only a few days later,
Chad and Harry had their baptism of fire, and
strange battle orders they heard, that made them
smile even in the thick of the fight.

"Huddle up thar!" "Scatter out, now!" "Form
a line of fight!" "Wait till you see the shine of
their eyes!"

"I see 'em!" shouted a private, and "bang"
went his gun. That was the way the fight opened.
Chad saw Harry's eyes blazing like stars from his
pale face, which looked pained and half sick, and
Chad understood — the lads were fighting their
own people, and there was no help for it. A voice
bellowed from the rear, and a man in a red cap
loomed in the smoke-mist ahead:

"Now, now! Git up and git, boys!"

That was the order for the charge, and the blue
line went forward. Chad never forgot that first
battle-field when he saw it a few hours later strewn
with dead and wounded, the dead lying, as they

284

MORGAN'S MEN

dropped, in every conceivable position, features
stark, limbs rigid; one man with a half-smoked
cigar on his breast; the faces of so many beard
less; some frowning, some as if asleep and dream
ing; and the wounded — some talking pitifully,
some in delirium, some courteous, patient, anxious
to save trouble, others morose, sullen, stolid, in
dependent; never forgot it, even the terrible night
after Shiloh, when he searched heaps of wounded
and slain for Caleb Hazel, who lay all through
the night wounded almost to death.

Later, the Fourth Ohio followed Johnston, as
he gave way before Buell, and many times did
they skirmish and fight with ubiquitous Morgan's
Men. Several times Harry and Dan sent each
other messages to say that each was still unhurt,
and both were in constant horror of some day
coming face to face. Once, indeed, Harry, chas
ing a rebel and firing at him, saw him lurch in his
saddle, and Chad, coming up, found the lad on
the ground, crying over a canteen which the rebel
had dropped. It was marked with the initials
D. D., the strap was cut by the bullet Harry had
fired, and not for a week of agonizing torture did
Harry learn that the canteen, though Dan's, had
been carried that day by another man.

It was on these scouts and skirmishes that the
four — Harry and Chad, and Caleb Hazel and
Yankee Jake Dillon, whose dog-like devotion to

285

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Chad soon became a regimental joke — became
known, not only among their own men, but among
their enemies, as the shrewdest and most daring
scouts in the Federal service. Every Morgan's
man came to know the name of Chad Buford; but
it was not until Shiloh that Chad got his shoul
der-straps, leading a charge under the very eye
of General Grant. After Shiloh, the Fourth Ohio
went back to its old quarters across the river, and
no sooner were Chad and Harry there than Ken
tucky was put under the Department of the Ohio;
and so it was also no queer turn of fate that now
they were on their way to new head-quarters in
Lexington.

Straight along the turnpike that ran between
the Dean and the Buford farms, the Fourth Ohio
went in a cloud of thick dust that rose and settled
like a gray choking mist on the seared fields.
Side by side rode Harry and Chad, and neither
spoke when, on the left, the white columns of the
Dean house came into viewT, and, on the right, the
red brick of Chad's old home showed through the
dusty leaves; not even when both saw on the Dean
porch the figures of two women who, standing
motionless, were looking at them. Harry's shoul
ders drooped, and he stared stonily ahead, while
Chad turned his head quickly. The front door
and shutters of the Buford house were closed, and
there were few signs of life about the place. Only

286

MORGAN'S MEN

at the gate was the slouching figure of Jerome
Conners, the overseer, who, waving his hat at the
column, recognized Chad, as he rode by, and
spoke to him, Chad thought, with a covert sneer.
Farther ahead, and on the farthest boundary of
the Buford farm, was a Federal fort, now de
serted, and the beautiful woodland that had once
stood in perfect beauty around it was sadly rav
aged and nearly gone, as was the Dean woodland
across the road. It was plain that some people
were paying the Yankee piper for the death-
dance in which a mighty nation was shaking its
feet.

On they went, past the old college, down Broad
way, wheeling at Second Street — Harry going on
with the regiment to camp on the other edge of
the town; Chad reporting with his colonel at Gen
eral Ward's head-quarters, a columned brick house
on one corner of the college campus, and straight
across from the Hunt home, where he had first
danced with Margaret Dean.

That night the two lay on the edge of the Ash
land woods, looking up at the stars, the ripened
bluegrass — a yellow, moonlit sea — around them
and the woods dark and still behind them. Both
smoked and were silent, but each knew that to the
other his thoughts were known; for both had been
on the same errand that day, and the miserable
tale of the last ten months both had learned.

287

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Trouble had soon begun for the ones who were
dear to them, when both left for the war. At
once General Anderson had promised immunity
from arrest to every peaceable citizen in the State,
but at once the shiftless, the prowling, the lawless,
gathered to the Home Guards for self-protection,
to mask deviltry and to wreak vengeance for pri
vate wrongs. At once mischief began. Along the
Ohio, men with Southern sympathies were clapped
into prison. Citizens who had joined the Confed
erates were pronounced guilty of treason, and
Breckinridge was expelled from the Senate as a
traitor. Morgan's great raid in June, '61, spread
consternation through the land and, straightway,
every district and county were at the mercy of a
petty local provost. No man of Southern sympa
thies could stand for office. Courts in session were
broken up with the bayonet. Civil authority was
overthrown. Destruction of property, indemnity
assessments on innocent men, arrests, imprison
ment, and murder became of daily occurrence.
Ministers were jailed and lately prisons had even
been prepared for disloyal women. Major Bu-
ford, forced to stay at home on account of his
rheumatism and the serious illness of Miss Lucy,
had been sent to prison once and was now under
arrest again. General Dean, old as he was, had
escaped and had gone to Virginia to fight with

288

MORGAN'S MEN

Lee; and Margaret and Mrs. Dean, with a few
servants, were out on the farm alone.

But neither spoke of the worst that both feared
was yet to come — and "Taps" sounded soft and
clear on the night air.

xxin

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

"IY/TEANWHILE Morgan was coming on—
led by the two videttes in gray — Daniel
Dean and Rebel Jerry Dillon — coming on to meet
Kirby Smith in Lexington after that general had
led the Bluegrass into the Confederate fold. They
were taking short cuts through the hills now, and
Rebel Jerry was guide, for he had joined Morgan
for that purpose. Jerry had long been notorious
along the border. He never gave quarter on his ex
peditions for personal vengeance, and it was said
that not even he knew how many men he had killed.
Every Morgan's man had heard of him, and was
anxious to see him; and see him they did, though
they never heard him open his lips except in an
swer to a question. To Dan he seemed to take a
strange fancy right away, but he was as voiceless
as the grave, except for an occasional oath, when
bush-whackers of Daws Dillon's ilk would pop at
the advance guard — sometimes from a rock di
rectly overhead, for chase was useless. It took a
roundabout climb of one hundred yards to get to
the top of that rock, so there was nothing for
videttes and guards to do but pop back, which

290

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

they did to no purpose. On the third day, how
ever, after a skirmish in which Dan had charged
with a little more dare-deviltry than usual, the big
Dillon ripped out an oath of protest. An hour
later he spoke again:

"I got a brother on t'other side."

Dan started. "Why, so have I," he said.
"What's your brother with ?"

"Wolford's cavalry."

"That's curious. So was mine — for a while.
He's with Grant now." The boy turned his head
away suddenly.

"I might meet him, if he were with Wolford
now," he said, half to himself, but Jerry heard
him and smiled viciously.

"Well, that's what I'm goin* with you fellers
fer — to meet mine."

"What!" said Dan, puzzled.

"We've been lookin' fer each other sence the
war broke out. I reckon he went on t'other side
to keep me from killin' him."

Dan shrank away from the giant with horror;
but next day the mountaineer saved the boy's life
in a fight in which Dan's chum — gallant little Tom
Morgan — lost his; and that night, as Dan lay
sleepless and crying in his blanket, Jerry Dillon
<:ame in from guard-duty and lay down by him.

"I'm goin' to take keer o' you."

"I don't need you," said Dan, gruffly, and
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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Rebel Jerry grunted, turned over on his side and
went to sleep. Night and day thereafter he was
by the boy's side.

A thrill ran through the entire command when
the column struck the first Bluegrass turnpike, and
a cheer rang from front to rear. Near Midway,
a little Bluegrass town some fifteen miles from
Lexington, a halt was called, and another deafen
ing cheer arose in the extreme rear and came for
ward like a rushing wind, as a coal-black horse
galloped the length of the column — its rider, hat
in hand, bowing with a proud smile to the flatter
ing storm — for the idolatry of the man and his
men was mutual — with the erect grace of an Ind
ian, the air of a courtier, and the bearing of a
soldier in every line of the six feet and more of
his tireless frame. No man who ever saw John
Morgan on horseback but had the picture stamped
forever on his brain, as no man who ever saw that
coal-black horse ever forgot Black Bess. Be
hind him came his staff, and behind them came
a wizened little man, whose nickname was "Light
ning" — telegraph operator for Morgan's Men.
There was need of Lightning now, so Morgan
sent him on into town with Dan and Jerry Dillon,
while he and Richard Hunt followed leisurely.

The three troopers found the station operator
seated on the platform — pipe in mouth, and en
joying himself hugely. He looked lazily at them.

2Q2

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

"Call up Lexington," said Lightning, sharply.

"Go to hell!" said the operator, and then he
nearly toppled from his chair. Lightning, with a
vicious gesture, had swung a pistol on him.

" Here — here ! " he gasped, " what'd you mean ? "

"Call up Lexington," repeated Lightning. The
operator seated himself.

"What do you want in Lexington ?" he growled.

"Ask the time of day?" The operator stared,
but the instrument clicked.

"What's your name ?" asked Lightning.

"Woolums."

"Well, Woolums, you're a 'plug.' I wanted to
see how you handled the key. Yes, Woolums,
you're a plug."

Then Lighting seated himself, and Woolums'
mouth flew open — Lightning copied his style with
such exactness. Again the instrument clicked and
Lightning listened, smiling:

"Will there be any danger coming to Mid
way?" asked a railroad conductor in Lexington.
Lightning answered, grinning:

"None. Come right on. No sign of rebels
here." Again a click from Lexington.

"General Ward orders General Finnell of
Frankfort to move his forces. General Ward will
move toward Georgetown, to which Morgan
with eighteen hundred men is marching."

Lightning caught his breath — this was Mor-

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

gan's force and his intention exactly. He an
swered :

"Morgan with upward of two thousand men
has taken the road to Frankfort. This is relia
ble." Ten minutes later, Lightning chuckled.

"Ward orders Finnell to recall his regiment to
Frankfort."

Half an hour later another idea struck Light
ning. He clicked as though telegraphing from
Frankfort:

"Our pickets just driven in. Great excitement.
Force of enemy must be two thousand."

Then Lightning laughed. "I've fooled 'em,"
said Lightning.

There was turmoil in Lexington. The streets
thundered with the tramp of cavalry going to
catch Morgan. Daylight came and nothing was
done — nothing known. The afternoon waned,
and still Ward fretted at head-quarters, while his
impatient staff sat on the piazza, talking, speculat
ing, wondering where the wily raider was. Lean
ing on the campus-fence near by were Chadwick
Buford and Harry Dean.

It had been a sad day for those two. The mu
tual tolerance that prevailed among their friends
in the beginning of the war had given way to in
tense bitterness now. There was no thrill for
them in the flags fluttering a welcome to them
from the windows of loyalists, for under those

294

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

flags old friends passed them in the street with no
sign of recognition, but a sullen, averted face, or
a stare of open contempt. Elizabeth Morgan
had met them, and turned her head when Harry
raised his cap, though Chad saw tears spring to
her eyes as she passed. Sad as it was for him,
Chad knew what the silent torture in Harry's
heart must be, for Harry could not bring himself,
that day, even to visit his own home. And now
Morgan was coming, and they might soon be in a
death-fight, Harry with his own blood-brother and
both with boyhood friends.

"God grant that you two may never meet!"
That cry from General Dean was beating cease
lessly through Harry's brain now, and he brought
one hand down on the fence, hardly noticing the
drop of blood that oozed from the force of the
blow.

"Oh, I wish I could get away from here!"
"I shall the first chance that comes," said Chad,
and he lifted his head sharply, staring down the
street. A phaeton was coming slowly toward
them and in it were a negro servant and a girl in
white. Harry was leaning over the fence with
his back toward the street, and Chad, the blood
rushing to his face, looked in silence, for the
negro was Snowball and the girl was Margaret.
He saw her start and flush when she saw him, her
hands giving a little convulsive clutch at the reins;

295

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

but she came on, looking straight ahead. Chad's
hand went unconsciously to his cap, and when
Harry rose, puzzled to see him bareheaded, the
phaeton stopped, and there was a half-broken cry:

"Harry!"

Cap still in hand, Chad strode away as the
brother, with an answering cry, sprang toward her.

When he came back, an hour later, at dusk,
Harry was seated on the portico, and the long
silence between them was broken at last.

"She — they oughtn't to come to town at a time
like this," said Chad, roughly.

"I told her that," said Harry, "but it was use
less. She will come and go just as she pleases."

Harry rose and leaned for a moment against
one of the big pillars, and then he turned impul
sively, and put one hand lightly on the other's
shoulder.

"I'm sorry, old man," he said, gently.

A pair of heels clicked suddenly together on
the grass before them, and an orderly stood at
salute.

"General Ward's compliments, and will Lieu
tenant Buford and Lieutenant Dean report to him
at once ? "

The two exchanged a swift glance, and the faces
of both grew grave with sudden apprehension.

296

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

Inside, the General looked worried, and his
manner was rather sharp.

" Do you know General Dean ?" he asked, look
ing at Harry.

"He is my father, sir."

The General wheeled in his chair.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Well — um — I sup
pose one of you will be enough. You can go."

When the door closed behind Harry, he looked
at Chad.

'There are two rebels at General Dean's house
to-night," he said, quietly. "One of them, I am
told — why, he must be that boy's brother," and
again the General mused; then he added, sharply:

'Take six good men out there right away and
capture them. And watch out for Daws Dillon
and his band of cut-throats. I am told he is in
this region. I've sent a company after him. But
you capture the two at General Dean's."

"Yes, sir," said Chad, turning quickly, but the
General had seen the lad's face grow pale.

"It is very strange down here — they may be
his best friends," he thought, and, being a kind-
hearted man, he reached out his hand toward
a bell to summon Chad back, and drew it in
again.

"I cannot help that; but that boy must have
good stuff in him."

Harry was waiting for him outside. He knew
297

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

that Dan would go home if it was possible, and
what Chad's mission must be.

"Don't hurt him, Chad."

"You don't have to ask that/* answered Chad,
sadly.

So Chad's old enemy, Daws Dillon, was abroad.
There was a big man with the boy at the Deans',
General Ward had said, but Chad little guessed
that it was another old acquaintance, Rebel Jerry
Dillon, who, at that hour, was having his supper
brought out to the stable to him, saying that he
would sleep there, take care of the horses, and
keep on the look-out for Yankees. Jerome Con-
ners's hand must be in this, Chad thought, for he
never for a moment doubted that the overseer had
brought the news to General Ward. He was
playing a fine game of loyalty to both sides, that
overseer, and Chad grimly made up h'is mind that,
from one side or the other, his day would come.
And this was the fortune of war — to be trotting,
at the head of six men, on such a mission, along
a road that, at every turn, on every little hill, and
almost in every fence-corner, was stored with
happy memories for him; to force entrance as an
enemy under a roof that had showered courtesy
and kindness down on him like rain, that in all
the world was most sacred to him; to bring death
to an old playmate, the brother of the woman

298

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

whom he loved, or capture, which might mean a
worse death in a loathsome prison. He thought
of that dawn when he drove home after the dance
at the Hunts' with the old Major asleep at his
side and his heart almost bursting with high hope
and happiness, and he ran his hand over his eyes
to brush the memory away. He must think only
of his duty now, and that duty was plain.

Across the fields they went in a noiseless walk,
and leaving their horses in the woods, under the
care of one soldier, slipped into the yard. Two
men were posted at the rear of the house, one was
stationed at each end of the long porch to com
mand the windows on either side, and, with a ser
geant at his elbow, Chad climbed the long steps
noiselessly and knocked at the front door. In a
moment it was thrown open by a woman, and the
light fell full in Chad's face.

"You — you — you!" said a voice that shook
with mingled terror and contempt, and Margaret
shrank back, step by step. Hearing her, Mrs.
Dean hurried into the hallway. Her face paled
when she saw the Federal uniform in her door
way, but her chin rose haughtily, and her voice
was steady and most courteous:

"What can we do for you ?" she asked, and she,
too, recognized Chad, and her face grew -.tern as
she waited for him to answer.

"Mrs. Dean," he said, half choking, ''word
299

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

has come to head-quarters that two Confederate
soldiers are spending the night here, and I have
been ordered to search the house for them. My
men have surrounded it, but if you will give me
your word that they are not here, not a man shall
cross your threshold — not even myself."

Without a word Mrs. Dean stood aside.

"I am sorry/' said Chad, motioning to the Ser
geant to follow him. As he passed the door of
the drawing-room, he saw, under the lamp, a pipe
with ashes strewn about its bowl. Chad pointed
to it.

"Spare me, Mrs. Dean." But the two women
stood with clinched hands, silent. Dan had
flashed into the kitchen, and was about to leap
from the window when he saw the gleam of a
rifle-barrel, not ten feet away. He would be pot
ted like a rat if he sprang out there, and he dashed
noiselessly up the back stairs, as Chad started up
the front stairway toward the garret, where he had
passed many a happy hour playing with Margaret
and Harry and the boy whom he was after as an
enemy, now. The door was open at the first land
ing, and the creak of the stairs under Dan's feet,
heard plainly, stopped. The Sergeant, pistol in
hand, started to push past his superior.

"Keep back," said Chad, sternly, and as he
drew his pistol, a terrified whisper rose from
below.

300

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

"Don't, don't!" And then Dan, with hands
up, stepped into sight.

"I'll spare you," he said, quietly. "Not a word,
mother. They've got me. You can tell him there
is no one else in the house, though."

Mrs. Dean's eyes filled with tears, and a sob
broke from Margaret.

"There is no one else," she said, and Chad
bowed. "In the house," she added, proudly,
scorning the subterfuge.

"Search the barn," said Chad, "quick!" The
Sergeant ran down the steps.

"I reckon you are a little too late, my friend,"
said Dan. "Why, bless me, it's my old friend
Chad — and a lieutenant! I congratulate you,"
he added, but he did not offer to shake
hands.

Chad had thought of the barn too late. Snow
ball had seen the men creeping through the yard,
had warned Jerry Dillon, and Jerry had slipped
the horses into the woodland, and had crept back
to learn what was going on.

"I will wait for you out here," said Chad.
"Take your time."

'Thank you," said Dan.

He came out in a moment and Mrs. Dean and
Margaret followed him. At a gesture from the
Sergeant, a soldier stationed himself on each side
of Dan, and, as Chad turned, he took off his cap

301

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

again. His face was very pale and his voice al
most broke:

"You will believe, Mrs. Dean," he said, "that
this was something I had to do."

Mrs. Dean bent her head slightly.

"Certainly, mother," said Dan. "Don't blame
Lieutenant Chad. Morgan will have Lexington
in a few days and then I'll be free again. Maybe
I'll have Lieutenant Chad a prisoner — no tell-
ing!"

Chad smiled faintly, and then, with a flush, he
spoke again — warning Mrs. Dean, in the kindli
est way, that, henceforth, her house would be
under suspicion, and telling her of the severe
measures that had been inaugurated against rebel
sympathizers.

"Such sympathizers have to take oath of alle
giance and give bonds to keep it."

"If they don't?"

"Arrest and imprisonment."

"And if they give the oath and violate it?"

"The penalty is death, Mrs. Dean."

"And if they aid their friends ?"

"They are to be dealt with according to mili
tary law."

"Anything else?"

"If loyal citizens are hurt or damaged by gue
rillas, disloyal citizens of the locality must make
compensation."

302

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

"Is it true that a Confederate sympathizer will
be shot down if on the streets of Lexington ? "

"There was such an order, Mrs. Dean."

"And if a loyal citizen is killed by one of these
so-called guerillas, for whose acts nobody is re
sponsible, prisoners of war are to be shot in re
taliation ?"

"Mother!" cried Margaret.

"No, Mrs. Dean — not prisoners of war — gue
rillas."

"And when will you begin war on women ?"

"Never, I hope." His hesitancy brought a
scorn into the searching eyes of his pale questioner
that Chad could not face, and without daring even
to look at Margaret he turned away.

Such retaliatory measures made startling news
to Dan. He grew very grave while he listened,
but as he followed Chad he chatted and laughed
and joked with his captors. Morgan would have
Lexington in three days. He was really glad to
get a chance to fill his belly with Yankee grub. It
hadn't been full more than two or three times in
six months.

All the time he was watching for Jerry Dillon,
who, he knew, would not leave him if there was
the least chance of getting him out of the Yan
kee's clutches. He did not have to wait long.
Two men had gone to get the horses, and as Dan
stepped through the yard-gate with his captors,

3°3

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

two figures rose out of the ground. One came
with head bent like a battering-ram. He heard
Snowball's head strike a stomach on one side of
him, and with an astonished groan the man went
down. He saw the man on his other side drop
from some crashing blow, and he saw Chad trying
to draw his pistol. His own fist shot out, catch
ing Chad on the point of the chin. At the same
instant there was a shot and the Sergeant dropped.

"Come on, boy!" said a hoarse voice, and then
he was speeding away after the gigantic figure of
Jerry Dillon through the thick darkness, while a
harmless volley of shots sped after them. At the
edge of the woods they dropped. Jerry Dillon
had his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing
aloud.

'The hosses ain't fer away," he said. "Oh,
Lawd!"

"Did you kill him?"

"I reckon not," whispered Jerry. "I shot him
on the wrong side. I'm al'ays a-fergettin* which
side a man's heart's on."

"What became of Snowball ?"

"He run jes' as soon as he butted the feller on
his right. He said he'd git one, but I didn't know
what he was doin* when I seed him start like a
sheep. Listen!"

There was a tumult at the house — moving
lights, excited cries, and a great hurrying. Black

3°4

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

Rufus was the first to appear with a lantern, and
when he held it high as the fence, Chad saw Mar
garet in the light, her hands clinched and her eyes
burning.

"Have you killed him ?" she asked, quietly but
fiercely. "You nearly did once before. Have
you succeeded this time ?" Then she saw the Ser
geant writhing on the ground, his right forearm
hugging his breast, and her hands relaxed and her
face changed.

"Did Dan do that? Did Dan do that?"

"Dan was unarmed," said Chad, quietly.

"Mother," called the girl, as though she had
not heard him, "send someone to help. Bring
him to the house," she added, turning. As no
movement was made, she turned again.

"Bring him up to the house," she said, imperi
ously, and when the hesitating soldiers stooped to
pick up the wounded man, she saw the streak of
blood running down Chad's chin and she stared
open-eyed. She made one step toward him, and
then she shrank back out of the light.

"Oh! ' she said. "Are you wounded, too?
Oh!"

"No!" said Chad, grimly. "Dan didn't do
that" — pointing to the Sergeant — "he did this — •
with his fist. It's the second time Dan has done
this. Easy, men," he added, with low-voiced
authority.

305

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Mrs. Dean was holding the door open.

"No," said Chad, quickly. 'That wicker
lounge will do. He will be cooler on the porch."
Then he stooped, and loosening the Sergeant's
blouse and shirt examined the wound.

"It's only through the shoulder, Lieutenant,"
said the man, faintly. But it was under the shoul
der, and Chad turned.

" Jake," he said, sharply, "go back and bring a
surgeon — and an officer to relieve me. I think he
can be moved in the morning, Mrs. Dean. With
your permission I will wait here until the Surgeon
comes. Please don't disturb yourself further "-
Margaret had appeared at the door, with some
bandages that she and her mother had been making
for Confederates and behind her a servant followed
with towels and a pail of water — "I am sorry to
trespass."

"Did the bullet pass through?" asked Mrs.
Dean, simply.

"No, Mrs. Dean," said Chad.

Margaret turned indoors. Without another
word, her mother knelt above the wounded man,
cut the shirt away, staunched the trickling blood,
and deftly bound the wound with lint and bandages,
while Chad stood, helplessly watching her.

"I am sorry," he said again, when she rose,
"sorry " '

"It is nothing," said Mrs. Dean, quietly. "If
306

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

you need anything, you will let me know. I shall
be waiting inside."

She turned and a few moments later Chad saw
Margaret's white figure swiftly climb the stairs —
but the light still burned in the noiseless room
below.

Meanwhile Dan and Jerry Dillon were far
across the fields on their way to rejoin Morgan.
When they were ten miles away, Dan, who was
leading, turned.

" Jerry, that Lieutenant was an old friend of
mine. General Morgan used to say he Was the
best scout in the Union Army. He comes from
your part of the country, and his name is Chad
Buford. Ever heard of him?"

"I've knowed him sence he was a chunk of a
boy, but I don't rickollect ever hearin* his last
name afore. I nuver knowed he had any."

"Well, I heard him call one of his men Jake —
and he looked exactly like you." The giant pulled
in his horse.

"I'mgoin' back."

"No, you aren't," said Dan; "not now — it's too
late. That's why I didn't tell you before." Then
he added, angrily: "You are a savage and you
ought to be ashamed of yourself harboring such
hatred against your own blood-brother."

Dan was perhaps the only one of Morgan's Men

307

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

who would have dared to talk that way to the man,
and Jerry Dillon took it only in sullen silence.

A mile farther they struck a pike, and, as they
swept along, a brilliant light glared into the sky
ahead of them, and they pulled in. A house was
in flames on the edge of a woodland, and by its
light they could see a body of men dash out of
the woods and across the field on horseback, and
another body dash after them in pursuit — the pur
suers firing and the pursued sending back defiant
yells. Daws Dillon was at his work again, and the
Yankees were after him.

Long after midnight Chad reported the loss of
his prisoner. He was much chagrined — for fail
ure was rare with him — and his jaw and teeth
ached from the blow Dan had given him, but in
his heart he was glad that the boy had got away.
When he went to his tent, Harry was awake and
waiting for him.

"It's I who have escaped," he said; "escaped
again. Four times now we have been in the same
fight. Somehow fate seems to be pointing always
one way — always one way. Why, night after
night, I dream that either he or I— Harry's
voice trembled— he stopped short, and, leaning
forward, stared out the door of his tent. A group
of figures had halted in front of the Colonel's tent
opposite, and a voice called, sharply:

308

CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND

"Two prisoners, sir. We captured 'em with
Daws Dillon. They are guerillas, sir."

"It's a lie, Colonel," said an easy voice, that
brought both Chad and Harry to their feet, and
plain in the moonlight both saw Daniel Dean, pale
but cool, and near him, Rebel Jerry Dillon — be th
with their hands bound behind them.

3°9

XXIV

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

"DUT the sun sank next day from a sky that
"^ was aflame with rebel victories. It rose on
a day rosy with rebel hopes, and the prophetic
coolness of autumn was in the early morning air
when Margaret in her phaeton moved through
the front pasture on her way to town — alone.
She w«3 in high spirits and her head was lifted
proudly. Dan's boast had come true. Kirby
Smith had risen swiftly from Tennessee, had
struck the Federal Army on the edge of the Blue-
grass the day before and sent it helter-skelter to
the four winds. Only that morning she had seen
a regiment of the hated Yankees move along the
turnpike in flight for the Ohio. It was the Fourth
Ohio Cavalry, and Harry and one whose name
never passed her lips were among those dusty
cavalrymen; but she was glad, and she ran down
to the stile and, from the fence, waved the Stars
and Bars at them as they passed — which was very
foolish, but which brought her deep content. Now
the rebels did hold Lexington. Morgan's Men
were coming that day and she was going into

310

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

town to see Dan and Colonel Hunt and General
Morgan and be fearlessly happy and triumphant.
At the Major's gate, whom should she see coming
out but the dear old fellow himself, and, when he
got off his horse and came to her, she leaned for
ward and kissed him, because he looked so thin
and pale from confinement, and because she was
so glad to see him. . Morgan's Men were really
coming, that very day, the Major said, and he
told her much thrilling news. Jackson had oblit
erated Pope at the second battle of Manassas.
Eleven thousand prisoners had been taken at
Harper's Ferry and Lee had gone on into Mary
land on the flank of Washington. Recruits were
coming into the Confederacy by the thousands.
Bragg had fifty-five thousand men and an impreg
nable stronghold in front of Buell, who had but
few men more — not enough to count a minute,
the Major said.

"Lee has routed 'em out of Virginia," cried
the old fellow, "and Buell is doomed. I tell you,
little girl, the fight is almost won."

Jerome Conners rode to the gate and called to
the Major in a tone that arrested the girl's atten
tion. She hated that man and she had noted a
queer change in his bearing since the war began.
She looked for a flash of anger from the Major,
but none came, and she began to wonder what
hold the overseer could have on his old master.

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

She drove on, puzzled, wondering, and disturbed;
but her cheeks were flushed — -the South was going
to win, the Yankees were gone, and she must get
to town in time to see the triumphant coming of
Morgan's Men. They were coming in when she
reached the Yankee head-quarters, which, she saw,
had changed flags — thank God — coming proudly
in, amid the waving of the Stars and Bars and
frenzied shouts of welcome. Where were the
Bluegrass Yankees now ? The Stars and Stripes
that had fluttered from their windows had been
drawn in and they were keeping very quiet, indeed
— Oh! it was joy! There was gallant Morgan
himself swinging from Black Bess to kiss his
mother, who stood waiting for him at her gate,
and there was Colonel Hunt, gay, debonair, jest
ing, shaking hands right and left, and crowding
the streets, Morgan's Men — the proudest blood in
the land — every gallant trooper getting his wel
come from the lips and arms of mother, sister,
sweetheart, or cousin of farthest degree. But
where was Dan ? She had heard nothing of him
since the night he had escaped capture, and while
she looked right and left for him to dash toward
her and swing from his horse, she heard her name
called, and turning she saw Richard Hunt at the
wheel of her phaeton. He waved his hand to
ward the happy reunions going on around them.
"The enforced brotherhood, Miss Margaret,""
312

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

he said, his eyes flashing, "I belong to that, you
know."

For once the subtle Colonel made a mistake.
Perhaps the girl in her trembling happiness and
under the excitement of the moment might have
welcomed him, as she was waiting to welcome
Dan, but she drew back now.

"Oh! no, Colonel — not on that ground."

Her eyes danced, she flushed curiously, as she
held out her hand, and the Colonel's brave heart
quickened. Straightway he began to wonder —
but a quick shadow in Margaret's face checked
him.

"But where's Dan? Where is Dan?" she re
peated, impatiently.

Richard Hunt looked puzzled. He had just
joined his command and something must have
gone wrong with Dan. So he lied swiftly.

"Dan is out on a scout. I don't think he has
got back yet. I'll find out."

Margaret watched him ride to where Morgan
stood with his mother in the rnidst of a joyous
group of neighbors and friends, and, a moment
later, the two officers came toward her on foot.

"Don't worry, Miss Margaret," said Morgan,
with a smile. "The Yankees have got Dan and
have taken him away as prisoner — but don't
worry, we'll get him exchanged in a week. I'll
give three brigadier-generals for him."

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Tears came to the girl's eyes, but she smiled
through them bravely.

"I must go back and tell mother," she said,
brokenly. "I hoped—

''Don't worry, little girl," said Morgan again.
"I'll have him I if have to capture the whole State
of Ohio."

Again Margaret smiled, but her heart was
heavy, and Richard Hunt was unhappy. He hung
around her phaeton all the while she was in town.
He went home with her, cheering her on the way
and telling her of the Confederate triumph that
was at hand. He comforted Mrs. Dean over
Dan's capture, and he rode back to town slowly,
with his hands on his saddle-bow — wondering
again. Perhaps Margaret had gotten over her
feeling for that mountain boy — that Yankee —
and there Richard Hunt checked his own thoughts,
for that mountain boy, he had discovered, was a
brave and chivalrous enemy, and to such, his own
high chivalry gave salute always.

He was very thoughtful when he reached camp.
He had an unusual desire to be alone, and that
night, he looked long at the stars, thinking of the
girl whom he had known since her babyhood-
knowing that he would never think of her except
as a woman again.

So the Confederates waited now in the Union
hour of darkness for Bragg to strike his; blow. He

3H

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

did strike it, but it was at the heart of the South.
He stunned the Confederacy by giving way before
Buell. He brought hope back with the bloody bat
tle of Perryville. Again he faced Buell at Har-
rodsburg, and then he wrought broadcast despair
by falling back without battle, dividing ins forces
and retreating into Tennessee. The dream of a
battle-line along the Ohio with a hundred thousand
more men behind it was gone and the last and best
chance to win the war was lost forever. Morgan,
furious with disappointment, left Lexington. Ken
tucky fell under Federal control once more; and
Major Buford, dazed, dismayed, unnerved, hope
less, brought the news out to the Deans.

'They'll get me again, I suppose, and I can't
leave home on account of Lucy."

"Please do, Major," said Mrs. Dean. "Send
Miss Lucy over here and make your escape. We
will take care of her." The Major shook his head
sadly and rode away.

Next day Margaret sat on the stile and saw the
Yankees coming back to Lexington. On one side
of her the Stars and Bars were fixed to the fence
from which they had floated since the day she had
waved- the flag at them as they fled. She saw the
advance guard come over the hill and jog down
the slope and then the regiment slowly following
after. In the rear she could see two men, riding
unarmed. Suddenly three cavalrymen spurred

315

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

forward at a gallop and turned in at her gate.
The soldier in advance was an officer, and he
pulled out a handkerchief, waved it once, and,
with a gesture to his companions, came on alone.
She knew the horse even before she recognized the
rider, and her cheeks flushed, her lips were set, and
her nostrils began to dilate. The horseman reined
in and took off his cap.

"I come under a flag of truce," he said, gravely,
"to ask this garrison to haul down its colors—
and — to save useless effusion of blood," he added,
still more gravely.

"Your war on women has begun, then ?"

"I am obeying orders — no more, no less."

"I congratulate you on your luck or your good
judgment always to be on hand when disagreeable
duties are to be done."

Chad flushed.

"Won't you take the flag down ?"

"No, make your attack. You will have one of
your usual victories — with overwhelming numbers
—and it will be safe and bloodless. There are
only two negroes defending this garrison. They
will not fight, nor will we."

"Won't you take the flag down ?"

"No!"

Chad lifted his cap and wheeled. The Colonel
was waiting at the gate.

"Well, sir?" he asked, frowning.
316

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

"I shall need help, sir, to take that flag down,"
said Chad.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"A woman is defending it."

"What!" shouted the Colonel.

"That is my sister, Colonel," said Harry Dean.
The Colonel smiled and then grew grave.

"You should warn her not to provoke the au
thorities. The Government is advising very strict
measures now with rebel sympathizers." Then he
smiled again.

"Fours! Left wheel! Halt! Present-
sabres!"

A line of sabres flashed in the sun, and Mar
garet, not understanding, snatched the flag from
the fence and waved it back in answer. The
Colonel laughed aloud. The column moved on,
and each captain, following, caught the humor of
the situation and each company flashed its sabres
as it went by, while Margaret stood motionless.

In the rear rode those two unarmed prisoners.
She could see now that their uniforms were gray
and she knew that they were prisoners, but she lit
tle dreamed that they were her brother Dan and
Rebel Jerry Dillon, nor did Chad Buford or
Harry Dean dream of the purpose for which, just
at that time, they were being brought back to
Lexington. Perhaps one man who saw them did
know: for Jerome Conners, from the woods op-

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

posite, watched the prisoners ride by with a ma
licious smile that nothing but impending danger
to an enemy could ever bring to his face; and with
the same smile he watched Margaret go slowly
back to the house, while her flag still fluttered from
the stile.

The high tide of Confederate hopes was fast
receding now. The army of the Potomac, after
Antietam, which overthrew the first Confederate
aggressive campaign at the East, was retreating
into its Southern stronghold, as was the army
of the West after Bragg's abandonment of Mum-
fordsville, and the rebel retirement had given
the provost-marshals in Kentucky full sway. Two
hundred Southern sympathizers, under arrest, had
been sent into exile north of the Ohio, and
large sums of money were levied for guerilla
outrages here and there — a heavy sum falling
on Major Buford for a vicious murder done
in his neighborhood by Daws Dillon and his
band on the night of the capture of Daniel
Dean and Rebel Jerry. The Major paid the levy
with the first mortgage he had ever given in his
life, and straightway Jerome Conners, who had
been dealing in mules and other Government sup
plies, took an attitude that was little short of in
solence toward his old master, whose farm was
passing into the overseer's clutches at last. Only
two nights before, another band of guerillas had

318

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

burned a farm-house, killed a Unionist, and fled
to the hills before the incoming Yankees, and the
Kentucky Commandant had sworn vengeance after
the old Mosaic way on victims already within his
power.

That night Chad and Harry were summoned
before General Ward. They found him seated
with his chin in his hand, looking out the window
at the moonlit campus. Without moving, he held
out a dirty piece of paper to Chad,

"Read that," he said.

" You have ketched two of my men and I hear
as how you mean to hang 'em. If you hang them
two men, I'm a-goin to hang every man of yours
I can git my hands on.

"DAWS DILLON — Captin."

Chad gave a low laugh and Harry smiled, but
the General kept grave.

"You know, of course, that your brother be
longs to Morgan's command?"

"I do, sir," said Harry, wonderingly.

"Do you know that his companion — the man
Dillon — Jerry Dillon — does?"

"I do not, sir."

'They were captured by a squad that was fight
ing Daws Dillon. This Jerry Dillon has the same
name and you found the two together at General
Dean's."

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"But they had both just left General Morgan's
command," said Harry, indignantly.

'That may be true, but this Daws Dillon has
sent a similar message to the Commandant, and
he has just been in here again and committed two
wanton outrages night before last. The Com
mandant is enraged and has issued orders for
stern retaliation."

"It's a trick of Daws Dillon," said Chad, hotly,
"an infamous trick. He hates his Cousin Jerry,
he hates me, and he hates the Deans, because they
were friends of mine." General Ward looked
troubled.

'The Commandant says he has been positively
informed that both the men joined Daws Dillon
an the fight that night. He has issued orders that
not only every guerilla captured shall be hung, but
that, whenever a Union citizen has been killed by
-•one of them, four of such marauders are to be
-taken to the spot and shot in retaliation. It is the
.only means left, he says."

There was a long silence. The faces of both
the lads had turned white as each saw the drift
of the General's meaning, and Harry strode for
ward to his desk.

"Do you mean to say, General Ward

The General wheeled in his chair and pointed
silently to an order that lay on the desk, and as
Harry started to read it, his voice broke. Daniel

320

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

Dean and Rebel Jerry were to be shot next morn
ing at sunrise.

The General spoke very kindly to Harry.

"I have known this all day, but I did not wish
to tell you until I had done everything I could.
I did not think it would be necessary to tell you
at all, for I thought there would be no trouble.
I telegraphed the Commandant, but" — he turned
again to the window — "I have not been able to
get them a trial by court-martial, or even a stay
in the execution. You'd better go see your brother
—he knows now — and you'd better send word to
your mother and sister.'*

Harry shook his head. His face was so drawn
and ghastly as he stood leaning heavily against
the table that Chad moved unconsciously to his
side.

"Where is the Commandant?" he asked.

"In Frankfort," said the General. Chad's eyes
kindled.

"Will you let me go see him to-night?"

" Certainly, and I will give you a message to him.
Perhaps you can yet save the boy, but there is no
chance for the man Dillon." The General took
up a pen. Harry seemed to sway as he turned to
go, and Chad put one arm around him and went
with him to the door.

321

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"There have been some surprising desertions
from the Confederate ranks," said the General,
as he wrote. 'That's the trouble." He looked
at his watch as he handed the message over his
shoulder to Chad. "You have ten hours before
sunrise and it is nearly sixty miles there and back.
If you are not here with a stay of execution both
will be shot. Do you think that you can make
it ? Of course you need not bring the message
back yourself. You can get the Commandant to
telegraph— The slam of a door interrupted
him — Chad was gone.

Harry was holding Dixie's bridle when he
reached the street and Chad swung into the
saddle.

"Don't tell them at home," he said. 'Til be
back here on time, or I'll be dead."

The two grasped hands. Harry nodded dumbly
and Dixie's feet beat the rhythm of her matchless
gallop down the quiet street. The sensitive little
mare seemed to catch at once the spirit of her
rider. Her haunches quivered. She tossed her
head and champed her bit, but not a pound did
she pull as she settled into an easy lope that told
how ^vell she knew that the ride before her was
long and hard. Out they went past the old ceme
tery, past the shaft to Clay rising from it, silvered
with moonlight, out where the picket fires gleamed,
and swinging on toward the Capital, unchallenged,

322

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

for the moon showed the blue of Chad's uniform
and his face gave sign that no trivial business, that
night, was his. Over quiet fields and into the
aisles of sleeping woods beat that musical rhythm
ceaselessly, awakening drowsy birds by the way
side, making bridges thunder, beating on and on
up hill and down until picket fires shone on the
hills that guard the Capital. Through them, with
but one challenge, Chad went, down the big hill,
past the Armory, and into the town — pulling pant
ing Dixie up before a wondering sentinel who
guarded the Commandant's sleeping quarters.

'The Commandant is asleep."

"Wake him up," said Chad, sharply. A staff-
officer appeared at the door in answer to the sen
tinel's knock.

"What is your business?"

"A message from General Ward."

'The Commandant gave orders that he was not
to be disturbed."

"He must be," said Chad. "It is a matter of
life and death."

Above him a window was suddenly raised and
the Commandant's own head was thrust out.

"Stop that noise," he thundered. Chad told
his mission and the Commandant straightway was
furious.

"How dare General Ward broach that matter
again ? My orders are given and they will not

323

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

be changed." As he started to pull the window
down, Chad cried:

" But, General— " and at the same time a voice
called down the street:

"General!" Two men appeared under the gas
light — one was a sergeant and the other a fright
ened negro.

"Here is a message, General."

The sash went down, a light appeared behind
it, and soon the Commandant, in trousers and slip
pers, was at the door. He read the note with a
frown.

"Where did you get this ?"

"A sojer come to my house out on the edge o'
town, suh, and said he'd kill me to-morrow if I
didn't hand dis note to you pussonally."

The Commandant turned to Chad. Somehow
his manner seemed suddenly changed.

"Do you know that these men belonged to
Morgan's command ?"

"I know that Daniel Dean did and that the man
Dillon was with him when captured."

Still frowning savagely, the Commandant turned
inside to his desk and a moment later the staff-
officer brought out a telegram and gave it tc
Chad.

"You can take this to the telegraph office your
self. It is a stay of execution."

"Thank you."

324

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

Chad drew a long breath of relief and gladness
and patted Dixie on the neck as he rode slowly
toward the low building where he had missed the
train on his first trip to the Capital. The tele
graph operator dashed to the door as Chad drew
up in front of it. He looked pale and excited.

"Send this telegram at once," said Chad.

The operator looked at it.

"Not in that direction to-night,'* he said, with
a strained laugh, "the wires are cut."

Chad almost reeled in his saddle — then the
paper was whisked from the astonished operator's
hand and horse and rider clattered up the hill.

At head-quarters the Commandant was hand
ing the negro's note to a staff-officer. It read:

" You hang those two men at sunrise to-morrow,
and I'll hang you at sundown."

It was signed "John Morgan," and the signa
ture was Morgan's own.

"I gave the order only last night. How could
Morgan have heard of it so soon, and how could
he have got this note to me ? Could he have come
back?"

"Impossible," said the staff-officer. "He
wouldn't dare come back now."

The Commandant shook his head doubtfully,
and just then there was a knock at the door and

325

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

the operator, still pale and excited, spoke his
message:

"General, the wires are cut."

The two officers stared at each other in silence.

Twenty-seven miles to go and less than three
hours before sunrise. There was a race yet for
the life of Daniel Dean. The gallant little mare
could cover the stretch with nearly an hour to
spare, and Chad, thrilled in every nerve, but with
calm confidence, raced against the coming dawn.

"The wires are cut."

Who had cut them and where and when and
why ? No matter — Chad had the paper in his
pocket that would save two lives and he would
be on time even if Dixie broke her noble heart,
but he could not get the words out of his brain-
even Dixie's hoofs beat them out ceaselessly:

"The wires are cut — the wires are cut!"

The mystery would have been clear, had Chad
known the message that lay on the Commandant's
desk back at the Capital, for the boy knew Mor
gan, and that Morgan's lips never opened for an
idle threat. He would have ridden just as hard,
had he known, but a different purpose would have
been his.

An hour more and there was still no light in the
East. An hour more and one red streak had shot

326

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

upward; then ahead of him gleamed a picket fire
— a fire that seemed farther from town than any
post he had seen on his way down to the Capital
—but he gallooed on. Within fifty yards a cry
came:

"Halt! Who comes there ?"

"Friend," he shouted, reining in. A bullet
whizzed past his head as he pulled up outside the
edge of the fire and Chad shouted indignantly:

"Don't shoot, you fool! I have a message for
General Ward!"

"Oh! All right! Come on!" said the sentinel,
but his hesitation and the tone of his voice made
the boy alert with suspicion. The other pickets
about the fire had risen and grasped their muskets.
The wind flared the flames just then and in the
leaping light Chad saw that their uniforms were
gray.

The boy almost gasped. There was need for
quick thought and quick action now.

"Lower that blunderbuss," he called out, jest
ingly, and kicking loose from one stirrup, he
touched Dixie with the spur and pulled her up
with an impatient "Whoa," as though he were
trying to replace his foot.

"You come on!" said the sentinel, but he
dropped his musket to the hollow of his arm, and,
before he could throw it to his shoulder again, fire
flashed under Dixie's feet and the astonished retel

327

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

saw horse and rider rise over the pike-fence. His
bullet went overhead as Dixie landed on the other
side, and the pickets at the fire joined in a fusillade
at the dark shapes speeding across the bluegrass
field. A moment later Chad's mocking yell rang
from the edge of the woods beyond and the dis
gusted sentinel split the night with oaths.

"That beats the devil. We never touched him.
I swear, I believe that hoss had wings."

Morgan! The flash of that name across his
brain cleared the mystery for Chad like magic.
Nobody but Morgan and his daredevils could rise
out of the ground like that in the very midst of
enemies when they were supposed to be hundreds
of miles away in Tennessee. Morgan had cut those
wires. Morgan had every road around Lexington
guarded, no doubt, and was at that hour hemming
in Chad's unsuspicious regiment, whose camp was
on the other side of town, and unless he could give
warning, Morgan would drop like a thunderbolt
on it, asleep. He must circle the town now to get
around the rebel posts, and that meant several miles
more for Dixie.

He stopped and reached down to feel the little
mare's flanks. Dixie drew a long breath and
dropped her muzzle to tear up a rich mouthful
of bluegrass.

"Oh, you beauty!" said the boy, "you won
der!" And on he went, through woodland and

328

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

field, over gully, log, and fence, bullets ringing
after him from nearly every road he crossed.

Morgan was near. In disgust, when Bragg re
treated, he had got permission to leave Kentucky
in his own way. That meant wheeling and mak
ing straight back to Lexington to surprise the
Fourth Ohio Cavalry; representing himself on the
way, one night, as his old enemy Wolford, and
being guided a short cut through the edge of the
Bluegrass by an ardent admirer of the Yankee
Colonel — the said admirer giving Morgan the
worst tirade possible, meanwhile, and nearly tum
bling from his horse when Morgan told him
who he was and sarcastically advised him to
make sure next time to whom he paid his com
pliments.

So that while Chad, with the precious message
under his jacket, and Dixie were lightly thunder
ing along the road, Morgan's Men were gobbling
up pickets around Lexington and making ready
for an attack on the sleeping camp at dawn.

The dawn was nearly breaking now, and Harry
Dean was pacing to and fro before the old Court-
House where Dan and Rebel Jerry lay under guard
—pacing to and fro and waiting for his mother and
sister to come to say the last good-by to the boy—
for Harry had given up hope and had sent for them.
At that very hour Richard Hunt was leading his
regiment around the Ashland woods where the

329

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

enemy lay; another regiment was taking its place
between the camp and the town, and gray figures
were slipping noiselessly on the provost-guard that
watched the rebel prisoners who were waiting for
death at sunrise. As the dawn broke, the dash
came, and Harry Dean was sick at heart as he
sharply rallied the startled guard to prevent the
rescue of his own brother and straightway deliri
ous with joy when he saw the gray mass sweeping
on him and knew that he would fail. A few shots
rang out; the far rattle of musketry rose between
the camp and town; the thunder of the " Bull Pups"
saluted the coming light, and Dan and Rebel Jer
ry had suddenly — instead of death — life, liberty,
arms, a horse each, and the sudden pursuit of hap
piness in a wild dash toward the Yankee camp,
while in a dew-drenched meadow two miles away,
Chad Buford drew Dixie in to listen. The fight
was on.

If the rebels won, Dan Dean would be safe; if
the Yankees — then there would still be need of
him and the paper over his heart. He was too
late to warn, but not, maybe, to fight — so he gal
loped on.

But the end came as he galloped. The amazed
Fourth Ohio threw down its arms at once, and
Richard Hunt and his men, as they sat on their
horses outside the camp picking up stragglers,
saw a lone scout coming at a gallop across the still,

33°

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

gray fields. His horse was black and his uniform
was blue, but he came straight on, apparently not
seeing the rebels behind the ragged hedge along
the road. When within thirty yards, Richard
Hunt rode through a roadside gate to meet •him
and saluted.

"You are my prisoner/' he said, courteously.

The Yankee never stopped, but wheeled, almost
brushing the hedge as he turned.

"Prisoner — hell!" he said, clearly, and like a
bird was skimming away while the men behind the
hedge, paralyzed by his daring, fired not a shot.
Only Dan Dean started through the gate in pur
suit.

"I want him," he said, savagely.

"Who's that?" asked Morgan, who had rid
den up.

'That's a Yankee," laughed Colonel Hunt.

"Why didn't you shoot him?" The Colonel
laughed again.

"I don't know," he said, looking around at his
men, who, too, were smiling.

'That's the fellow who gave us so much trouble
in the Green River Country," said a soldier. "It's
Chad Buford."

"Well, I'm glad we didn't shoot him," said
Colonel Hunt, thinking of Margaret. That was
not the way he liked to dispose of a rival.

"Dan will catch him," said an officer. "He

331

wants him bad, and I don't wonder." Just then
Chad lifted Dixie over a fence.

"Not much," said Morgan. "I'd rather you'd
shot him than that horse."

Dan was gaining now, and Chad, in the middle
of the field beyemd the fence, turned his head and
saw the lone rebel in pursuit. Deliberately he
pulled weary Dixie in, faced about, and waited.
He drew his pistol, raised it, saw that the rebel
was Daniel Dean, and dropped it again to his side.
Verily the fortune of that war was strange. Dan's
horse refused the fence and the boy, in a rage,
lifted his pistol and fired. Again Chad raised his
own pistol and again he lowered it just as Dan
fired again. This time Chad lurched in his sad
dle, but recovering himself, turned and galloped
slowly away, while Dan — his pistol hanging at his
side — stared after him, and the wondering rebels
behind the hedge stared hard at Dan.

All was over. The Fourth Ohio Cavalry was
in rebel hands, and a few minutes later Dan rode
with General Morgan and Colonel Hunt toward
the Yankee camp. There had been many blun
ders in the fight. Regiments had fired into each
other in the confusion and the "Bull Pups'' had
kept on pounding the Yankee camp even while the
rebels were taking possession of it. On the way

332

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

they met Renfrew, the Silent, in his brilliant Zou
ave jacket.

"Colonel," he said, indignantly — ard it was the
first time many had ever heard him open his lips
— "some officer over there deliberately fired twice
at me, though I was holding my arms over my
head."

"It was dark," said Colonel Hunt, soothingly.
"He didn't know you."

"Ah, Colonel, he might not have known me —
but he must have known this jacket."

On the outskirts of one group of prisoners was
a tall, slender young lieutenant with a streak of
blood across one cheek. Dan pulled in his horse
and the two met each other's eyes silently. Dan
threw himself from his horse.

"Are you hurt, Harry?"

"It's nothing — but you've got me, Dan."

"Why, Harry!" said Morgan. "Is that you ?
You are paroled, my boy," he added, kindly. "Go
home and stay until you are exchanged."

So, Harry, as a prisoner, did what he had not
done before — he went home immediately. And
home with him went Dan and Colonel Hunt,
while they could, for the Yankees would soon be
after them from the north, east, south and west. Be
hind them trotted Rebel Jerry. On the edge of
town they saw a negro lashing a pair of horses
along the turnpike toward them. Two white-

333

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

faced women were seated in a carnage behind him,
and in a moment Dan was in the arms of his
mother and sister and both women were looking,
through tears, their speechless gratitude to Rich
ard Hunt.

The three Confederates did not stay long at the
Deans'. Jerry Dillon was on the lookout, and
even while the Deans were at dinner, Rufus ran
in with the familiar cry that Yankees were com
ing. It was a regiment from an adjoining county,
but Colonel Hunt finished his coffee, amid all the
excitement, most leisurely.

''You'll pardon us for eating and running, won't
you, Mrs. Dean?" It was the first time in her
life that Mrs. Dean ever speeded a parting guest.

"Oh, do hurry, Colonel — please, please." Dan
laughed.

"Good-by, Harry," he said. "We'll give you
a week or two at home before we get that ex
change."

"Don't make it any longer than necessary,
please," said Harry, gravely.

"We're coming back again, Mrs. Dean," said
the Colonel, and then in a lower tone to Marga
ret: "I'm coming often," he added, and Margaret
blushed in a way that would not have given very
great joy to one Chadwick Buford.

Very leisurely the three rode out to the pike-
gate, where they halted and surveyed the advanc-

334

A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN

ing column, which was still several hundred yards
away, and then with a last wave of their caps,
started in a slow gallop for town. The advance
guard started suddenly in pursuit, and the Deans
saw Dan turn in his saddle and heard his defiant
yell. Margaret ran down and fixed her flag in its
place on the fence — Harry watching her.

"Mother," he said, sadly, "you don't know
what trouble you may be laying for up yourself."

Fate could hardly lay up more than what she
already had, but the mother smiled.

"I can do nothing with Margaret," she said.

In town the Federal flags had been furled and
the Stars and Bars thrown out to the wind. Mor
gan was preparing to march when Dan and Colonel
Hunt galloped up to head-quarters.

'They're coming," said Hunt, quietly.

"Yes," said Morgan, "from every direction."

"Ah, John," called an old fellow, who, though
a Unionist, believing in keeping peace with both
sides, "when we don't expect you — then is the time
you come. Going to stay long?"

"Not long," said Morgan, grimly. "In fact,
I guess we'll be moving along now."

And he did — back to Dixie with his prisoners,
tearing up railroads, burning bridges and trestles,
and pursued by enough Yankees to have eaten him
and his entire command if they ever could have
caught him. As they passed into Dixie, "Light-

335

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

ning" captured a telegraph office and had a last
little fling at his Yankee brethren.

"Head-quarters, Telegraph Dept. of Ky., Con
federate States of America" — thus he headed his
"General Order No. i" to the various Union au
thorities throughout the State.

"Hereafter," he clicked, grinning, "an operator
will destroy telegraphic instruments and all ma
terial in charge when informed that Morgan has
crossed the border. Such instances of carelessness
as lately have been exhibited in the Bluegrass will
be severely dealt with.

"By order of

"LIGHTNING,
"Gen. Supt. C. S. Tel. Dept."

Just about that time Chad Buford, in a Yankee
hospital, was coming back from the land of ether
dreams. An hour later, the surgeon who had taken
Dan's bullet from his shoulder, handed him a piece
of paper, black with faded blood and scarcely
legible.

"I found that in your jacket," he said. "Is it
important?"

Chad smiled.

"No," he said. "Not now."

336

XXV

AFTER DAWS DILLON — GUERILLA

more, and for the last time, Chadwick
Buford jogged along the turnpike from the
Ohio to the heart of the Bluegrass. He had filled
his empty shoulder-straps with two bars. He had
a bullet wound through one shoulder and there
was a beautiful sabre cut across his right cheek.
He looked the soldier every inch of him; he was,
in truth, what he looked; and he was, moreover,
a man. Naturally, his face was stern and reso
lute, if only from habit of authority, but he had
known no passion during the war that might have
seared its kindness; no other feeling toward his
foes than admiration for their unquenchable cour
age and miserable regret that to such men he must
be a foe.

Now, it was coming spring again — the spring
of '64, and but one more year of the war to come.

The capture of the Fourth Ohio by Morgan
that autumn of '62 had given Chad his long-
looked-for chance. He turned Dixie's head
toward the foothills to join Wolford, for with

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Wolford was the work that he loved — that leader
being more like Morgan' in his method and daring
than any other Federal cavalryman in the field.

Behind him, in Kentucky, he left the State un
der martial sway once more, and, thereafter, the
troubles of rebel sympathizers multiplied steadily,
for never again was the State under rebel control.
A heavy hand was laid on every rebel roof.
Major Buford was sent to prison again. General
Dean was in Virginia, fighting, and only the fact
that there was no man in the Dean household on
whom vengeance could fall, saved Margaret and
Mrs. Dean from suffering, but even the time of
women was to come.

On the last day of '62, Murfreesboro was fought
and the second great effort of the Confederacy at
the West was lost. Again Bragg withdrew. On
New Year's Day, '63, Lincoln freed the slaves —
and no rebel was more indignant than wras Chad-
wick Buford. The Kentucky Unionists, in general,
protested: the Confederates had broken the Con
stitution, they said; the Unionists were helping to
maintain that contract and now the Federals had
broken the Constitution, and their own high ground
was swept from beneath their feet. They pro
tested as bitterly as their foes, be it said, against
the Federals breaking up political conventions with
bayonets and against the ruin of innocent citizens
for the crimes of guerillas, for whose acts nobody

338

AFTER DAWS DILLON— GUERILLA

was responsible, but all to no avail. The terrorism
only grew the more.

When summer came, and while Grant was bi
secting the Confederacy at Vicksburg, by open
ing the Mississippi, and Lee was fighting Gettys
burg, Chad, with Wolford, chased Morgan when
he gathered his clans for his last daring venture
—to cross the Ohio and strike the enemy on
its own hearth-stones — and thus give him a
little taste of what the South had long known
from border to border. Pursued by Federals,
Morgan got across the river, waving a fare
well to his pursuing enemies on the other bank,
and struck out. Within three days, one hundred
thousand men were after him and his two thou
sand daredevils, cutting down trees behind him
(in case he should return!), flanking him, getting
in his front, but on he went, uncaught and spread
ing terror for a thousand miles, while behind him
for six hundred miles country people lined the
dusty road, singing " Rally 'round the Flag, Boys,"
and handing out fried chicken and blackberry-pie
to his pursuers. Men taken afterward with ty
phoid fever sang that song through their delirium
and tasted fried chicken no more as long as they
lived. Hemmed in as Morgan was, he would
have gotten away, but for the fact that a heavy
fog made 'him miss the crossing of the river, and
for the further reason that the first rise in the river

339

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

in that month for twenty years made it impossible
for his command to swim. He might have fought
out, but his ammunition was gone. Many did es
cape, and Morgan himself could have gotten away.
Chad, himself, saw the rebel chief swimming the
river on a powerful horse, followed by a negro-
servant on another- — saw him turn deliberately in
the middle of the stream, when it was plain that
his command could not escape, and make for the
Ohio shore to share the fortunes of his beloved
officers who were left behind. Chad heard him
shout to the negro:

"Go back, you will be drowned." The negro
turned his face and Chad laughed- — it was Snow
ball, grinning and shaking his head:

" No, Mars John, no suh ! " he yelled. " It's all
right fer you! You can git a furlough, but dis
nigger ain't gwine to be cotched in no free State.
'Sides, Mars Dan, he gwine to get away, too."
And Dan did get away, and Chad, to his shame,
saw Morgan and Colonel Hunt loaded on a boat
to be sent down to prison in a State penitentiary!
It was a grateful surprise to Chad, two months
later, to learn from a Federal officer that Morgan
with six others had dug out of prison and escaped.

"I was going through that very town," said the
officer, "and a fellow, shaved and sheared like a
convict, got aboard and sat down in the same seat
with me. As we passed the penitentiary, he turned
with a yawn — and said, in a matter-of-fact way:

340

AFTER DAWS DILLON— GUERILLA

'That's where Morgan is kept, isn't it?' and
then he drew out a flask. I thought he had won
derfully good manners in spite of his looks, and,
so help me, if he didn't wave his hand, bow like
a Bayard, and hand it over to me:

'Let's drink to the hope that Morgan may
always be as safe as he is now.' I drank to his
toast with a hearty Amen, and the fellow never
cracked a smile. It was Morgan himself."

Early in '64 the order had gone round for negroes
to be enrolled as soldiers, and again no rebel felt
more outraged than Chadwick Buford. Wolford,
his commander, was dishonorably dismissed from
the service for bitter protests and harsh open criti
cism of the Government, and Chad, himself, felt
like tearing ofFwith his own hands the straps which
he had won with so much bravery and worn with so
much pride. But the instinct that led him into the
Union service kept his lips sealed when his respect
for that service, in his own State, was well-nigh
gone — kept him in that State where he thought his
duty lay. There was need of him and thousands
more like him. For, while active war was now
over in Kentucky, its brood of evils was still thick
ening. Every county in the State was ravaged by
a guerilla band — and the ranks of these marauders
began to be swelled by Confederates, particularly
in the mountains and in the hills that skirt them.
Banks, trains, public vaults, stores, were robbed

341

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

right and left, and murder and revenge were of
daily occurrence. Daws Dillon was an open terror
both in the mountains and in the Bluegrass. Hith
erto the bands had been Union and Confederate,
but now, more and more, men who had been rebels
joined them. And Chad Buford could understand.
For, many a rebel soldier — "hopeless now for his
cause," as Richard Hunt was wont to say, "fight
ing from pride, bereft of sympathy, aid, and en
couragement that he once received, and compelled
to wring existence from his own countrymen; a
cavalryman on some out-post department, perhaps,
without rations, fluttering with rags; shod, if shod
at all, with shoes that sucked in rain and cold;
sleeping at night under the blanket that kept his
saddle by day from his sore-backed horse; paid,
if paid at all, with waste paper; hardened into
recklessness by war — many a rebel soldier thus be
came a guerilla — consoling himself, perhaps, with
the thought that his desertion was not to the ene
my."

Bad as the methods of such men were, they
were hardly worse than the means taken in retali
ation. At first, Confederate sympathizers were
arrested and held as hostages for all persons capt
ured and detained by guerillas. Later, when a
citizen was killed by one of these bands, four pris
oners, supposed to be chosen from this class of
free-booters, were taken from prison and shot to

342

AFTER DAWS DILLON— GUERILLA

death on the spot where the deed was done. Now
it was rare that one of these brigands was ever
taken alive, and thus regular soldier after soldier
who was a prisoner of war, and entitled to con
sideration as such, was taken from prison and
murdered by the Commandant without even a
court-martial. It was such a death that Dan Dean
and Rebel Jerry had narrowly escaped. Union
men were imprisoned even for protesting against
these outrages, so that between guerilla and pro
vost-marshal no citizen, whether Federal or Con
federate, in sympathy, felt safe in property, life,
or liberty. The better Unionists were alienated,
but worse yet was to come. Hitherto, only the
finest chivalry had been shown women and children
throughout the war. Women whose brothers and
husbands and sons were in the rebel army, or dead
on the battle-field, were banished now with their
children to Canada under a negro guard, or sent
to prison. State authorities became openly ar
rayed against provost-marshals and their follow
ers. There was almost an open clash. The Gov
ernor, a Unionist, threatened even to recall the
Kentucky troops from the field to come back and
protect their homes. Even the Home Guards got
disgusted with their masters, and for a while it
seemed as if the State, between guerilla and pro
vost-marshal, would go to pieces. For months the
Confederates had repudiated all connection with

343

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

these free-booters and had joined with Federals in
hunting them down, but when the State govern
ment tried to raise troops to crush them, the Com
mandant not only ordered his troops to resist the
State, but ordered the muster-out of all State troops
then in service.

The Deans little knew then how much trouble
Captain Chad Buford, whose daring service against
guerillas had given him great power with the
Union authorities, had saved them — how he had
kept them from arrest and imprisonment on the
charge of none other than Jerome Conners, the
overseer; how he had ridden out to pay his per
sonal respects to the complainant, and that brave
gentleman, seeing him from afar, had mounted
his horse and fled, terror-stricken. They never
knew that just after this he had got a furlough
and gone to see Grant himself, who had sent him
on to tell his story to Mr. Lincoln.

"Go back to Kentucky, then," said Grant, with
his quiet smile, "and if General Ward has noth
ing particular for you to do, I want him to send
you to me," and Chad had gone from him, dizzy
with pride and hope.

"I'm going to do something," said Mr. Lin
coln, "and I'm going to do it right away/'

And now, in the spring of '64, Chad carried in
his breast despatches from the President himself
to General Ward at Lexington.

344

AFTER DAWS DILLON— GUERILLA

As he rode over the next hill, from which he
would get his first glimpse of his old home and
the Deans', his heart beat fast and his eyes swept
both sides of the road. Both houses — even the
Deans' — were shuttered and closed — both tenant-
less. He saw not even a negro cabin that showed
a sign of life.

On he went at a gallop toward Lexington. Not
a single rebel flag had he seen since he left the
Ohio, nor was he at all surprised; the end could
not be far off, and there was no chance that the
Federals would ever again lose the State.

On the edge of the town he overtook a Federal
officer. It was Harry Dean, pale and thin from
long imprisonment and sickness. Harry had been
with Sherman, had been captured again, and, in
prison, had almost died with fever. He had come
home to get well only to find his sister and mother
sent as exiles to Canada. Major Buford was still
in prison, Miss Lucy was dead, and Jerome Con-
ners seemed master of the house and farm. Gen
eral Dean had been killed, had been sent home,
and was buried in the garden. It was only two
days after the burial, Harry said, that Margaret
and her mother had to leave their home. Even
the bandages that Mrs. Dean had brought out to
Chad's wounded sergeant, that night he had capt
ured and lost Dan, had been brought up as proof
that she and Margaret were aiding and abetting

345

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Confederates. Dan had gone to join Morgan and
Colonel Hunt over in southwestern Virginia, where
Morgan had at last got a new command only a
few months before. Harry made no word of
comment, but Chad's heart got bitter as gall as
he listened. And this had happened to the Deans
while he was gone to serve them. But the bloody
Commandant of the State would be removed from
power — that much good had been done — as Chad
learned when he presented himself, with a black
face, to his general.

"I could not help it," said the General, quickly.
"He seems to have hated the Deans." And again
read the despatches slowly. "You have done good
work. There will be less trouble now." Then he
paused. "I have had a letter from General Grant.
He wants you on his staff." Again he paused, and
it took the three past years of discipline to help
Chad keep his self-control. 'That is, if I have
nothing particular for you to do. He seems to
know what you have done and to suspect that there
may be something more here for you to do. He's
right. I want you to destroy Daws Dillon and
his band. There will be no peace until he is out
of the way. You know the mountains better than
anybody. You are the man for the work. You
will take one company from Wolford's regiment
—he has been reinstated, you know — and go at
once. When you have finished that — you can go

346

AFTER DAWS DILLON— GUERILLA

to General Grant." The General smiled. "You
are rather young to be so near a major — perhaps."

A major! The quick joy of the thought left
him when he went down the stairs to the portico
and saw Harry Dean's thin, sad face, and thought
of the new grave in the Deans' garden and those
two lonely women in exile. There was one small
grain of consolation. It was his old enemy, Daws
Dillon, who had slain Joel Turner; Daws who had
almost ruined Major Buford and had sent him to
prison — Daws had played no small part in the sor
rows of the Deans, and on the heels of Daws Dillon
he soon would be.

"I suppose I am to go with you," said Harry.

"Why, yes," said Chad, startled; "how did you
know?"

"I didn't know. How far is Dillon's hiding-
place from where Morgan is?"

"Across the mountains." Chad understood sud
denly. "You won't have to go," he said quickly.

"I'll go where I am ordered," said Harry Dean.

347

XXVI

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST

TT was the first warm day of spring and the sun-
shine was very soothing to Melissa as she sat
on the old porch early in the afternoon. Perhaps
it was a memory of childhood, perhaps she was
thinking of the happy days she and Chad had
spent on the river bank long ago, and perhaps it
was the sudden thought that, with the little they
had to eat in the house and that little the same
three times a day, week in and week out, Mother
Turner, who had been ailing, would like to have
some fish; perhaps it was the primitive hunting
instinct that, on such a day, sets a country boy's
fingers itching for a squirrel rifle or a cane fishing-
pole, but she sprang from her seat, leaving old
Jack to doze on the porch, and, in half an hour,
was crouched down behind a boulder below the
river bend, dropping a wriggling worm into a
dark, still pool. As she sat there, contented and
luckless, the sun grew so warm that she got drowsy
and dozed — how long she did not know — but she
awoke with a start and with a frightened sense
that someone was near her, though she could hear

348

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST

no sound. But she lay still — her heart beating
high — and so sure that her instinct was true that
she was not even surprised when she heard a voice
in the thicket above — a low voice, but one she
knew perfectly well:

" I tell you he's a-comin' up the river now. He's
a-goin' to stay with ole Ham Blake ter-night over
the mountain an' he'll be a-comin' through Hurri
cane Gap 'bout daylight ter-morrer or next day,
shore. He's got a lot o' men, but we can layway
'em in the Gap an' git away all right." It was
Tad Dillon speaking — Daws Dillon, his brother,
answered :

"I don't want to kill anybody but that damned
Chad — Captain Chad Buford, he calls hisself."

"Well, we can git him all right. I heerd that
they was a-lookin' fer us an' was goin' to ketch
us if they could."

"I wish I knowed that was so," said Daws with
an oath. "Nary a one of 'em would git away
alive if I just knowed it was so. But we'll git
Captain Chad Buford, shore as hell! You go tell
the boys to guard the Gap ter-night. They mought
come through afore day." And then the noise of
their footsteps fainted out of hearing and Melissa
rose and sped back to the house.

From behind a clump of bushes above where
she had sat, rose the gigantic figure of Rebel Jerry
Dillon. He looked after the flying girl with a

349

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

grim smile and then dropped his great bulk down
on the bed of moss where he had been listening
to the plan of his enemies and kinsmen. Jerry had
made many expeditions over from Virginia lately
and each time he had gone back with a new notch
on the murderous knife that he carried in his belt.
He had but two personal enemies alive now —
Daws Dillon, who had tried to have him shot, and
his own brother, Yankee Jake. This was the sec
ond time he had been over for Daws, and after
his first trip he had persuaded Dan to ask permis
sion from General Morgan to take a company into
Kentucky and destroy Daws and his band, and
Morgan had given him leave, for Federals and
Confederates were chasing down these guerillas
now — sometimes even joining forces to further
their common purpose. Jerry had been slipping
through the woods after Daws, meaning to crawl
close enough to kill him and, perhaps, Tad Dillon,
too, if necessary, but after hearing their plan he had
let them go, for a bigger chance might be at hand.
If Chad Buford was in the mountains looking for
Daws, Yankee Jake was with him. If he killed
Daws now, Chad and his men would hear of his
death and would go back, most likely — and that
was the thought that checked his finger on the
trigger of his pistol. Another thought now lifted
him to his feet with surprising quickness and sent
him on a run down the river where his horse was

35°

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST

hitched in the bushes. He would go over the
mountain for Dan. He could lead Dan and his
men to Hurricane Gap by daylight. Chad Buford
could fight it out with Daws and his gang, and he
and Dan would fight it out with the men who won
— no matter whether Yankees or guerillas. And
a grim smile stayed on Rebel Jerry's face as he
climbed.

On the porch of the Turner cabin sat Melissa
with her hands clinched and old Jack's head in
her lap. There was no use worrying Mother Tur
ner — she feared even to tell her — but what should
she do ? She might boldly cross the mountain
now, for she was known to be a rebel, but the Dil
lons knowing, too, how close Chad had once been
to the Turners might suspect and stop her. No,
if she went at all, she must go after nightfall—
but how would she get away from Mother Tur
ner, and how could she make her way, undetected,
through Hurricane Gap ? The cliffs were so steep
and close together in one place that she could
hardly pass more than forty feet from the road
on either side and she could not pass that close to
pickets and not be heard. Her brain ached with
planning and she was so absorbed as night came
on that several times old Mother Turner queru
lously asked what was ailing her and why she did
not pay more heed to her work, and the girl an
swered her patiently and went on with her plan-

351

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

ning. Before dark, she knew what she would do,
and after the old mother was asleep, she rose softly
and slipped out the door without awakening even
old Jack, and went to the barn, where she got the
sheep-bell that old Beelzebub used to wear and
with the clapper caught in one hand, to keep the
bell from tinkling, she went swiftly down the road
toward Hurricane Gap. Several times she had to
dart into the bushes while men on horseback rode
by her, and once she came near being caught by
three men on foot — all hurrying at Daws Dillon's
order to the Gap through which she must go.
When the road turned from the river, she wTent
slowly along the edge of it, so that if discovered,
she could leap with one spring into the bushes.
It was raining — a cold drizzle that began to
chill her and set her to coughing so that she was
half afraid that she might disclose herself. At the
mouth of the Gap she saw a fire on one side of the
road and could hear talking, but she had no dif
ficulty passing it, on the other side. But on, where
the Gap narrowed — there was the trouble. It
must have been an hour before midnight when she
tremblingly neared the narrow defile. The rain
had ceased, and as she crept around a boulder she
could see, by the light of the moon between two
black clouds, two sentinels beyond. The crisis
was at hand now. She slipped to one side of the
road, climbed the cliff as high as she could and

352

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST

crept about it. She was past one picket now, and
in her eagerness one foot slipped and she half fell.
She almost held her breath and lay still.

"I hear somethin' up thar in the bresh," shouted
the second picket. "Halt!"

Melissa tinkled the sheep-bell and pushed a bush
to and fro as though a sheep or a cow might
be rubbing itself, and the picket she had passed
laughed aloud.

"Coin' to shoot ole Sally Perkins's cow, air
you ?" he said, jeeringly. " Yes, I heerd her/' he
added, lying; for, being up all the night before,
he had drowsed at his post. A moment later, Me
lissa moved on, making considerable noise and
tinkling her bell constantly. She was near the top
now and when she peered out through the bushes,
no one was in sight and she leaped into the road
and fled down the mountain. At the foot of the
spur another ringing cry smote the darkness in
front of her:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Don't shoot!" she cried, weakly. "It's only
me."

"Advance, 'Me,'" said the picket, astonished
to hear a woman's voice. And then into the light
of his fire stepped a shepherdess with a sheep-bell
in her hand, with a beautiful, pale, distressed face,
a wet, clinging dress, and masses of yellow hair
surging out of the shawl over her head. The

353

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

startled picket dropped the butt of his musket to
the ground and stared.

"I want to see Ch — -, your captain," she said,
timidly.

"All right," said the soldier, courteously. "He's
just below there and I guess he's up. We are get-
ting ready to start now. Come along. "

"Oh, no!" said Melissa, hurriedly. "I can't
go down there. " It had just struck her that Chad
must not see her; but the picket thought she natu
rally did not wish to face a lot of soldiers in her
bedraggled and torn dress, and he said quickly:

"All right. Give me your message and I'll take
it to him." He smiled. "You can wait here and
stand guard."

Melissa told him hurriedly how she had come
over the mountain and what was going on over
there, and the picket with a low whistle started
down toward his camp without another word.

Chad could not doubt the accuracy of the in
formation — the picket had names and facts.

"A girl, you say?"

"Yes, sir" — the soldier hesitated — "and a very
pretty one, too. She came over the mountain
alone and on foot through this darkness. She
passed the pickets on the other side — pretending
to be a sheep. She had a bell in her hand." Chad
smiled — he knew that trick.

"Where is she?"

354

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST

"She's standing guard for me."

The picket turned at a gesture from Chad and
led the way. They found no Melissa. She had
heard Chad's voice and fled up the mountain.
Before daybreak she was descending the moun
tain on the other side, along the same way, tinkling
her sheep-bell and creeping past the pickets. It
was raining again now and her cold had grown
worse. Several times she had to muffle her face
into her shawl to keep her cough from betraying
her. As she passed the ford below the Turner
cabin, she heard the splash of many horses crossing
the river and she ran on, frightened and wonder
ing. Before day broke she had slipped into her
bed without arousing Mother Turner, and she did
not get up that day, but lay ill abed.

The splashing of those many horses was made
by Captain Daniel Dean and his men, guided by
Rebel Jerry. High on the mountain side they hid
their horses in a ravine and crept toward the Gap
on foot — so that while Daws with his gang waited
for Chad, the rebels lay in the brush waiting for
him. Dan was merry over the prospect:

"We will just let them fight it out," he said,
"and then we'll dash in and gobble 'em both up.
That was a fine scheme of yours, Jerry."

Rebel Jerry smiled : there was one thing he had
not told his captain — who those rebels were. Pui-
posely he had kept that fact hidden. He had seen

355

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Dan purposely refrain from killing Chad Buford
once and he feared that Dan might think his
brother Harry was among the Yankees. All this
Rebel Jerry failed to understand, and he wanted
nothing known now that might stay anybody's
hand. Dawn broke and nothing happened. Not
a shot rang out and only the smoke of the gue
rillas' fire showed in the peaceful mouth of the
Gap. Dan wanted to attack the guerillas, but
Jerry persuaded him to wait until he could learn
how the land lay, and disappeared in the bushes.
At noon he came back.

'The Yankees have found out Daws is thar in
the Gap," he said, "an* they are goin' to slip over
before day ter-morrer and s'prise him. Hit don't
make no difference to us, which s'prises which—
does it ? "

So the rebels kept hid through the day in the
bushes on the mountain side, and when Chad slipped
through the Gap next morning, before day, and
took up the guerilla pickets, Dan had moved into
the same Gap from the other side, and was lying
in the bushes with his men, near the guerillas' fire,
waiting for the Yankees to make their attack. He
had not long to wait. At the first white streak of
dawn overhead, a shout rang through the woods
from the Yankees to the startled guerillas.

"Surrender!" A fusillade followed. Again:

"Surrender!" and there was a short silence,

356

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAS7

broken by low curses from the guerillas, and one
stern Yankee voice giving short, quick orders.
The guerillas had given up. Rebel Jerry moved
restlessly at Dan's side and Dan cautioned him.

"Wait! Let them have time to disarm the
prisoners," he whispered.

"Now," he added, a little while later — "creep
quietly, boys."

Forward they went like snakes, creeping to the
edge of the brush whence they could see the sullen
guerillas grouped on one side of the fire — their
arms stacked, while a tall figure in blue moved
here and there, and gave orders in a voice that all
at once seemed strangely familiar to Dan.

"Now, boys," he said, half aloud, "give 'em a
volley and charge."

At his word there was a rattling fusillade, and
then the rebels leaped from the bushes and dashed
on the astonished Yankees and their prisoners. It
was pistol to pistol at first and then they closed to
knife thrust and musket butt, hand to hand — in
a cloud of smoke. At the first fire from the rebels
Chad saw his prisoner, Daws Dillon, leap for the
stacked arms and disappear. A moment later, as
he was emptying his pistol at his charging foes,
he felt a bullet clip a lock of hair from the back
of his head and he turned to see Daws on the far
thest edge of the firelight levelling his pistol for
another shot before he ran. Like lightning he

357

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

wheeled and when his finger pulled the trigger,
Daws sank limply, his grinning, malignant face
sickening as he fell.

The taU fellow in blue snapped his pistol at
Dan, and as Dan, whose pistol, too, was empty,
sprang forward and closed with him, he heard a
triumphant yell behind him and Rebel Jerry's
huge figure flashed past him. With the same
glance he saw among the Yankees another giant
— who looked like another Jerry — saw his face
grow ghastly with fear when Jerry's yell rose,
and then grow taut with ferocity as he tugged
at his sheath to meet the murderous knife flash
ing toward him. The terrible Dillon twins were
come together at last, and Dan shuddered, but he
saw no more, for he was busy with the lithe Yan
kee in whose arms he was closed. As they strug
gled, Dan tried to get his knife and the Yankee
tugged for his second pistol — each clasping the
other's wrist. Not a sound did they make nor
could either see the other's face, for Dan had his
chin in his opponent's breast and was striving to
bend him backward. He had clutched the Yan
kee's right hand, as it went back for his pistol,
just as the Yankee had caught his right in front,
feeling for his knife. The advantage would have
been all Dan's except that the Yankee suddenly
loosed his wrist and gripped him tight about the
body in an underhold, so that Dan could not whirl

358

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST

him round; but he could twist that wrist and
twist it he did, with both hands and all his strength.
Once the Yankee gave a smothered groan of pain
and Dan heard him grit his teeth to keep it back.
The smoke had lifted now, and, when they fell,
it was in the light of the fire. The Yankee had
thrown him with a knee-trick that Harry used to
try on him when they were boys, but something
about the Yankee snapped, as they fell, and he
groaned aloud. Clutching him by the throat, Dan
threw him off — he could get at his knife now.

"Surrender!" he said, hoarsely.

His answer was a convulsive struggle and then
the Yankee lay still.

"Surrender!" said Dan again, lifting his knife
above the Yankee's breast, "or, damn you, I'll—
The Yankee had turned his face weakly toward the
fire, and Dan, with a cry of horror, threw his knife
away and sprang to his feet. Straightway the Yan
kee's closed eyes opened and he smiled faintly.

"Why, Dan, is that you ?" he asked. "I thought
it would come," he added, quietly, and then Harry
Dean lapsed into unconsciousness.

Thus, at its best, this fratricidal war was being
fought out that daybreak in one little hollow of the
Kentucky mountains and thus, at its worst, it was
being fought out in another little hollow scarcely
twenty yards away, where the giant twins — Rebel
T^rry and Yankee Jake — who did know they were

359

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

brothers, sought each other's lives in mutual mis
conception and mutual hate.

There were a dozen dead Federals and guerillas
around the fire, and among them was Daws Dil
lon with the pallor of death on his face and the
hate that life had written there still clinging to
it like a shadow. As Dan bent tenderly over his
brother Harry, two soldiers brought in a huge body
from the bushes, and he turned to see Rebel Jerry
Dillon. There were a half a dozen rents in his
uniform and a fearful slash under his chin — but
he was breathing still. Chad Buford had escaped,
and so had Yankee Jake.

360

XXVII

AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGANA MEN

TN May, Grant simply said — Forward! The
day he crossed the Rapidan, he said it to
Sherman down in Georgia. After the battle of the
Wilderness he said it again, and the last brutal
resort of hammering down the northern buttress
and sea-wall of the rebellion — old Virginia — and
Atlanta, the keystone of the Confederate arch,
was well under way. Throughout those bloody
days Chad was with Grant and Harry Dean was
with Sherman on his terrible trisecting march to
the sea. For, after the fight between Rebels and
Yankees and Daws Dillon's guerilla band, over in
Kentucky, Dan, coming back from another raid
into the Bluegrass, had found his brother gone.
Harry had refused to accept a parole and had
escaped. Not a man, Dan was told, fired a shot at
him, as he ran. One soldier raised his musket, but
Renfrew the Silent struck the muzzle upward.

In September, Atlanta fell and, in that same
month, Dan saw his great leader, John Morgan,
dead in Tennessee. In December, the Confed->
eracy toppled at the west under Thomas's blows

361

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

at Nashville. In the spring of '65, one hundred
and thirty-five thousand wretched, broken-down
rebels, from Richmond to the Rio Grande, con
fronted Grant's million men, and in April, Five
Forks was the beginning of the final end every
where.

At midnight, Captain Daniel Dean, bearer of
dispatches to the great Confederate General in
Virginia, rode out of abandoned Richmond with
the cavalry of young Fitzhugh Lee. They had
threaded their way amid troops, trains, and ar
tillery across the bridge. The city \vas on fire.
By its light, the stream of humanity was pouring
out of town — Davis and his cabinet, citizens, sol
diers, down to the mechanics in the armories and
workshops. The chief concern with all was the
same, a little to eat for a few days; for, with the
morning, the enemy would come and Confederate
money would be as mist. Afar off the little fleet
of Confederate gunboats blazed and the thunder
ing explosions of their magazines split the clear
air. Freight depots with supplies were burning.
Plunderers were spreading the fires and slipping
like ghouls through red light and black shadows.
At daybreak the last retreating gun rumbled past
and, at sunrise, Dan looked back from the hills on
the smoking and deserted city and Grant's blue
lines sweeping into it.

Once only he saw his great chief — the next
362

AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGAN'S MEN

morning before day, when he rode through the
chill mist and darkness to find the head-quarters
of the commanding General — two little fires of
rubbish and two ambulances — with Lee lying on
a blanket under the open sky. He rose, as Dan
drew near, and the firelight fell full on his bronzed
and mournful face. He looked so sad and so
noble that the boy's heart was wrenched, and as
Dan turned away, he said, brokenly:

"General, I am General Dean's son, and I want
to thank you— He could get no farther. Lee
laid one hand on his shoulder.

" Be as good a man as your father was, my
boy," he said, and Dan rode back the pitiable way
through the rear of that noble army of Virginia-
through ranks of tattered, worn, hungry soldiers,
among the broken debris of wagons and abandoned
guns, past skeleton horses and skeleton men.

All hope was gone, but Fitz Lee led his cavalry
through the Yankee lines and escaped. In that
flight Daniel Dean got his only wound in the war
—a bullet through the shoulder. When the sur
render came, Fitz Lee gave up, too, and led back
his command to get Grant's generous terms. But
all his men did not go with him, and among the
cavalrymen who went on toward southwestern Vir
ginia was Dan — making his way back to Richard
Hunt — for now that gallant Morgan was dead,
Hunt was general of the old command.

363

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Behind, at Appomattox, Chad was with Grant.
He saw the surrender — saw Lee look toward his
army, when he came down the steps after he had
given up, saw him strike his hands together three
times and ride Traveller away through the pro
found and silent respect of his enemies and the
tearful worship of his own men. And Chad got
permission straightway to go back to Ohio, and
he mustered out with his old regiment, and he,
too, started back through Virginia.

Meanwhile, Dan was drawing near the moun
tains. He was worn out when he reached Abing-
don. The wound in his shoulder was festering and
he was in a high fever. At the camp of Morgan's
Men he found only a hospital left — for General
Hunt had gone southward — and a hospital was
what he most needed now. As he lay, unconscious
with fever, next day, a giant figure, lying near,
turned his head and stared at the boy. It was
Rebel Jerry Dillon, helpless from a sabre cut and
frightfully scarred by the fearful wounds his
brother, Yankee Jake, had given him. And thus,
Chadwick Buford, making for the Ohio, saw the
two strange messmates, a few days later, when
he rode into the deserted rebel camp.

All was over. Red Mars had passed beyond
the horizon and the white Star of Peace already
shone faintly on the ravaged South. The shat
tered remnants of Morgan's cavalry, pall-bearers

364

AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGAN'S MEN

of the Lost Cause — had gone South — bare-footed
and in rags — to guard Jefferson Davis to safety,
and Chad's heart was wrung when he stepped into
the little hospital they had left behind — a space
cleared into a thicket of rhododendron. There
was not a tent — there was little medicine — little-
food. The drizzling rain dropped on the group
of ragged sick men from the branches above them.
Nearly all were youthful, and the youngest was a
mere boy, who lay delirious with his head on the
root of a tree. As Chad stood looking, the boy
opened his eyes and his mouth twitched with
pain.

"Hello, you damned Yankee." Again his
mouth twitched and again the old dare-devil light
that Chad knew so well kindled in his hazy eyes.

"I said," he repeated, distinctly, "Hello, you
damned Yank. Damned Yank I said." Chad
beckoned to two men.

"Go bring a stretcher."

The men shook their heads with a grim smile
— they had no stretcher.

The boy talked dreamily.

"Say, Yank, didn't we give you hell in — oh,
well, in lots o' places. But you've got me." The
two soldiers were lifting him in their arms. "Go-
in' to take me to prison ? Goin' to take me out
to shoot me, Yank ? You are a damned Yank."
A hoarse growl rose behind them and the giant

365

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

lifted himself on one elbow, swaying his head
from side to side.

"Let that boy alone!" Dan nodded back at
him confidently.

'That's all right, Jerry. This Yank's a friend
of mine." His brow wrinkled. "At any rate he
looks like somebody I know. He's goin' to give
me something to eat and get me well — like hell,"
he added to himself- — passing off into unconscious
ness again. Chad had the lad carried to his own
tent, had him stripped, bathed, and bandaged and
stood looking down at him. It was hard to be
lieve that the broken, aged youth was the red-
cheeked, vigorous lad whom he had known as
Daniel Dean. He was ragged, starved, all but
bare-footed, wounded, sick, and yet he was as un
daunted, as defiant, as when he charged with Mor
gan's dare-devils at the beginning of the war.
Then Chad went back to the hospital — for a
blanket and some medicine.

"They are friends," he said to the Confederate
surgeon, pointing at a huge gaunt figure.

"I reckon that big fellow has saved that boy's
life a dozen times. Yes, they're mess-mates."
And Chad stood looking down at Jerry Dillon,
one of the giant twins — whose name was a terror
throughout the mountains of the middle south.
Then he turned and the surgeon followed. There
was a rustle of branches on one side when they

366

AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGAN'S MEN

were gone, and at the sound the wounded man
lifted his head. The branches parted and the ox-
like face of Yankee Jake peered through. For
a full minute, the two brothers stared at each
other.

"I reckon you got me, Jake," said Jerry.

"I been lookin' fer ye a long while," said Jake,
simply, and he smiled strangely as he moved slow
ly forward and looked down at his enemy — his
heavy head wagging from side to side. Jerry
was fumbling at his belt. The big knife flashed,
but Jake's hand was as quick as its gleam, and
he had the wrist that held it. His great fingers
crushed together, the blade dropped on the
ground, and again the big twins looked at each
other. Slowly, Yankee Jake picked up the knife.
The other moved not a muscle and in his fierce
eyes was no plea for mercy. The point of the
blade moved slowly down — down over the rebel's
heart, and was thrust into its sheath again. Then
Jake let go the wrist.

"Don't tech it agin," he said, and he strode
away. The big fellow lay blinking. He did not
open his lips when, in a moment, Yankee Jake
slouched in with a canteen of water. When Chad
came back, one giant was drawing on the other a
pair of socks. The other was still silent and had
his face turned the other way. Looking up, Jake
met Chad's surprised gaze with a grin.

367

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

A day later, Dan came to his senses. A tent
was above him, a heavy blanket was beneath him
and there were clothes on his body that felt
strangely fresh and clean. He looked up to see
Chad's face between the flaps of the tent.

"D'you do this?"

"That's all right," said Chad. "This war is
over." And he went away to let Dan think it out.
When he came again, Dan held out his hand
silently.

368

XXVIII

PALL-BEARERS OF THE LOST CAUSE

pHE rain was falling with a steady roar when
General Hunt broke camp a few days be
fore. The mountain-tops were black with thunder
clouds, and along the muddy road went Morgan's
Men — most of them on mules which had been
taken from abandoned wagons when news of the
surrender came — without saddles and with blind
bridles or rope halters — the rest slopping along
through the yellow mud on foot — literally — for
few of them had shoes; they were on their way to
protect Davis and join Johnston, now that Lee
was no more. There was no murmuring, no fal
tering, and it touched Richard Hunt to observe
that they were now more prompt to obedience,
when it was optional with them whether they
should go or stay, than they had ever been in the
proudest days of the Confederacy.

Threatened from Tennessee and cut off from
Richmond, Hunt had made up his mind to march
eastward to join Lee, when the news of the sur
render came. Had the sun at that moment
dropped suddenly to the horizon from the heaven

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

above them, those Confederates would have been
hardly more startled or plunged into deeper de
spair. Crowds of infantry threw down their arms
and, with the rest, all sense of discipline was lost.
Of the cavalry, however, not more than ten men
declined to march south, and out they moved
through the drenching rain in a silence that was
broken only with a single cheer when ninety men
from another Kentucky brigade joined them, who,
too, felt that as long as the Confederate Govern
ment survived, there was work for them to do.
So on they went to keep up the struggle, if the
word was given, skirmishing, fighting and slip
ping past the enemies that were hemming them in,
on with Davis, his cabinet, and General Breckin-
ridge to join Taylor and Forrest in Alabama.
Across the border of South Carolina, an irate old
lady upbraided Hunt for allowing his soldiers to
take forage from her barn.

"You are a gang of thieving Kentuckians," she
said, hotly; "you are afraid to go home, while our
boys are surrendering decently."

"Madam!"-— Renfrew the Silent spoke — spoke
from the depths or his once brilliant jacket—
"you South Carolinians had a good deal to say
about getting up this war, but we Kentuckians
have contracted to close it out."

Then came the last Confederate council of war.
In turn, each officer spoke of his men and of him-

37°

PALL-BEARERS OF THE LOST CAUSE

self and each to the same effect; the cause was lost
and there was no use in prolonging the war.

"We will give our lives to secure your safety,
but we cannot urge our men to struggle against a
fate that is inevitable, and perhaps thus forfeit all
hope of a restoration to their homes and friends."

Davis was affable, dignified, calm, undaunted.

"I will hear of no plan that is concerned only
with my safety. A few brave men can prolong
the war until this panic has passed, and they will
be a nucleus for thousands more."

The answer was silence, as the gaunt, beaten
man looked from face to face. He rose with an
effort.

"I see all hope is gone," he said, bitterly, and
though his calm remained, his bearing was less
erect, his face was deathly pale and his step so
infirm that he leaned upon General Breckinridge
as he neared the door — in the bitterest moment,
perhaps, of his life.

So, the old Morgan's Men, so long separated,
were united at the end. In a broken voice General
Hunt forbade the men who had followed him on
foot three hundred miles from Virginia to go far
ther, but to disperse to their homes; and they wept
like children.

In front of him was a big force of Federal cav
alry; retreat the way he had come was impossible,
and to the left, if he escaped, was the sea; but

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

dauntless Hunt refused to surrender except at the
order of a superior, or unless told that all was
done that could be done to assure the escape of
his President. That order came from Breckin-
ridge.

"Surrender," was the message. "Go back to
your homes, I will not have one of these young
men encounter one more hazard for my sake."

That night Richard Hunt fought out his fight
with himself, pacing to and fro under the stars.
He had struggled faithfully for what he believed,
still believed, and would, perhaps, always believe,
was right. He had fought for the broadest ideal
of liberty as he understood it, for citizen, State,
and nation. The appeal had gone to the sword
and the verdict was against him. He would accept
it. He would go home, take the oath of alle
giance, resume the law, and, as an American citi
zen, do his duty. He had no sense of humiliation;
he had no apology to make and would never have
— he had done his duty. He felt no bitterness,
and had no fault to find with his foes, who were
brave and had done their duty as they had seen
it; for he granted them the right to see a different
duty from what he had decided was his. And
that was all.

Renfrew the Silent was waiting at the smoulder
ing fire. He neither looked up nor made any
comment when General Hunt spoke his determina-

372

PALL-BEARERS OF THE LOST CAUSE

tion. His own face grew more sullen and he
reached his hand into his breast and pulled from
his faded jacket the tattered colors that he once
had borne.

'These will never be lowered as long as I live,"
he said, "nor afterwards if I can prevent it."
And lowered they never were. On a little island
in the Pacific Ocean, this strange soldier, after
leaving his property and his kindred forever, lived
out his life among the natives with this blood
stained remnant of the Stars and Bars over his
hut, and when he died, the flag was hung over his
grave, and above that grave to-day the tattered
emblem still sways in southern air.

A week earlier, two Rebels and two Yankees
started across the mountain together — Chad and
Dan and the giant Dillon twins — Chad and Yan
kee Jake afoot. Up Lonesome they went toward
the shaggy flank of Black Mountain where the
Great Reaper had mowed down Chad's first
friends. The logs of the cabin were still stand
ing, though the roof was caved in and the yard
was a tangle of undergrowth. A dull pain set
tled in Chad's breast, while he looked, and as
they were climbing the spur, he choked when he
caught sight of the graves under the big poplar.

There was the little pen that he had built over

373

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

his foster-mother's grave — still undisturbed. He
said nothing and, as they went down the spur,
across the river and up Pine Mountain, he kept
his gnawing memories to himself. Only ten
years before, and he seemed an old, old man
now. He recognized the very spot where he
had slept the first night after he ran away and
awakened to that fearful never-forgotten storm
at sunrise, which lived in his memory now as a
mighty portent of the storms of human passion
that had swept around him on many a battle
field. There was the very tree where he had
killed the squirrel and the rattlesnake. It was
bursting spring now, but the buds of laurel and
rhododendron were unbroken. Down Kingdom
Come they went. Here was where he had met
the old cow, and here was the little hill where Jack
had fought Whizzer and he had fought Tad Dil
lon and where he had first seen Melissa. Again
the scarlet of her tattered gown flashed before
his eyes. At the bend of the river they parted
from the giant twins. Faithful Jake's face was
foolish when Chad took him by the hand and
spoke to him, as man to man, and Rebel Jerry
turned his face quickly when Dan told him that
he would never forget him, and made him prom
ise to come to see him, if Jerry ever took an
other raft down to the capital. Looking back
from the hill, Chad saw them slowly moving

374

PALL-BEARERS OF THE LOST CAUSE

along a path toward the woods — not looking at
each other and speaking not at all.

Beyond rose the smoke of the old Turner cabin.
On the porch sat the old Turner mother, her bon
net in her hand, her eyes looking down the river.
Dozing at her feet was Jack — old Jack. She had
never forgiven Chad, and she could not forgive
him now, though Chad saw her eyes soften when
she looked at the tattered butternut that Dan wore.
But Jack — half-blind and aged — sprang trembling
to his feet when he heard Chad's voice and whim
pered like a child. Chad sank on the porch with
one arm about the old dog's neck. Mother Tur
ner answered all questions shortly.

Melissa had gone to the "Settlemints." Why?
The old woman would not answer. She was com
ing back, but she was ill. She had never been well
since she went afoot, one cold night, to warn some
Yankee that Daws Dillon was after him. Chad
started. It was Melissa who had perhaps saved
his life. Tad Dillon had stepped into Daws's
shoes, and the war was still going on in the hills.
Tom Turner had died in prison. The old mother
was waiting for Dolph and Rube to come back-
she was looking for them every hour, day and
night She did not know what had become of
the school-master — but Chad did, and he told her.
The school-master had died, storming breastworks
at Gettysburg. The old woman said not a word.

375

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Dan was too weak to ride now. So Chad got
Dave Hilton, Melissa's old sweetheart, to take
Dixie to Richmond — a little Kentucky town on
the edge of the Bluegrass — and leave her there,
and he bought the old Turner canoe. She would
have no use for it, Mother Turner said — he could
have it for nothing; but when Chad thrust a ten-
dollar Federal bill into her hands, she broke down
and threw her arms around him and cried.

So down the river went Chad and Dan — drift
ing with the tide — Chad in the stern, Dan lying at
full length, with his head on a blue army-coat and
looking up at the over-swung branches and the sky
and the clouds above them — down, through a mist
of memories for Chad — down to the capital.

And Harry Dean, too, was on his way home
coming up from the far South — up through the
ravaged land of his own people, past homes and
fields which his own hands had helped to lay waste.

376

XXIX

MELISSA AND MARGARET

P^HE early spring sunshine lay like a benedic-
tion over the Dean household, for Margaret
and her mother were home from exile. On the
corner of the veranda sat Mrs. Dean, where she
always sat, knitting. Under the big weeping wil
low in the garden was her husband's grave. When
she was not seated near it, she was there in the
porch, and to it her eyes seemed always to stray
when she lifted them from her work.

The mail had just come and Margaret was read
ing a letter from Dan, and, as she read, her cheeks
flushed.

"He took me into his own tent, mother, and
put his own clothes on me and nursed me like a
brother. And now he is going to take me to
you and Margaret, he says, and I shall be strong
enough, I hope, to start in a week. I shall be his
friend for life."

Neither mother nor daughter spoke when the
girl ceased reading. Only Margaret rose soon
and walked down the gravelled walk to the stile.

377

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Beneath the hill, the creek sparkled. She could
see the very pool where her brothers and the queer
little stranger from the mountains were fishing
the day he came into her life. She remembered
the indignant heart-beat with which she had heard
him call her "little gal," and she smiled now, but
she could recall the very tone of his voice and the
steady look in his clear eyes when he offered her
the perch he had caught. Even then his spirit
appealed unconsciously to her, when he sturdily
refused to go up to the house because her brother
was "feelin' hard towards him." How strange
and far away all that seemed now! Up the creek
and around the woods she strolled, deep in mem
ories. For a long while she sat on a stone wall in
the sunshine — thinking and dreaming, and it was
growing late when she started back to the house.
At the stile, she turned for a moment to look at
the old Buford home across the fields. As she
looked, she saw the pike-gate open and a woman's
figure enter, and she kept her eyes idly upon it as
she walked on toward the house. The woman
came slowly and hesitatingly toward the yard.
When she drew nearer, Margaret could see that
she wore homespun, home-made shoes, and a poke-
bonnet. On her hands were yarn half-mits, and,
as she walked, she pushed her bonnet from her
eyes with one hand, first to one side, then to the
other — looking at the locusts planted along the

378

MELISSA AND MARGARET

avenue, the cedars in the yard, the sweep of lawn
overspread with springing bluegrass. At the yard
gate she stopped, leaning over it — her eyes fixed
on the stately white house, with its mighty pillars.
Margaret was standing on the steps now, motion
less and waiting, and, knowing that she was seen,
the woman opened the gate and walked up the
gravelled path — never taking her eyes from the
figure on the porch. Straight she walked to the
foot of the steps, and there she stopped, and,
pushing her bonnet back, she said, simply:

"Are you Mar-ga-ret?" pronouncing the name
slowly and with great distinctness.

Margaret started.

"Yes," she said.

The girl merely looked at her — long and hard.
Once her lips moved:

"Mar-ga-ret," and still she looked. "Do you
know whar Chad is ?"

Margaret flushed.

"Who are you ?"

"Melissy."

Melissa! The two girls looked deep into each
other's eyes and, for one flashing moment, each
saw the other's heart — bared and beating — and
Margaret saw, too, a strange light ebb slowly
from the other's face and a strange shadow follow
slowly after.

"You mean Major Buford?"

379

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"I mean Chad. Is he dead ?"

"No, he is bringing my brother home."

"Harry?"

"No— Dan."

"Dan— here?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"As soon as my brother gets well enough to
travel. He is wounded."

Melissa turned her face then. Her mouth
twitched and her clasped hands were working in
and out. Then she turned again.

"I come up here from the mountains, afoot,
jus' to tell ye — to tell you that Chad ain't no"-
she stopped suddenly, seeing Margaret's quick
flush — "Chad's mother was married. I jus' found
it out last week. He ain't no" — she started
fiercely again and stopped again. "But I come
here fer him — not fer you. You oughtn't to 'a'
keered. Hit wouldn't 'a' been his fault. He
never was the same after he come back from here.
Hit worried him most to death, an' I know hit was
you — you he was always thinkin' about. He
didn't keer 'cept fer you." Again that shadow
came and deepened. "An* you oughtn't to 'a'
keered what he was — and that's why I hate you,"
she said, calmly — "fer worryin' him an' bein' so
high-heeled that you was willin' to let him mighty
nigh bust his heart about somethin' that wasn't his

380

MELISSA AND MARGARET

fault. I come fer him — you understand — fer
him. I hate you!"

She turned without another word, walked slowly
back down the walk and through the gate. Mar
garet stood dazed, helpless, almost frightened.
She heard the girl cough and saw now that she
walked as if weak and ill. As she turned into the
road, Margaret ran down the steps and across the
fields to the turnpike. When she reached the road-
fence the girl was coming around the bend with
her eyes on the ground, and every now and then
she would cough and put her hand to her breast.
She looked up quickly, hearing the noise ahead of
her, and stopped as Margaret climbed the low
stone wall and sprang down,

"Melissa, Melissa I You mustn't hate me. You
mustn't hate me" Margaret's eyes were stream
ing and her voice trembled with kindness. She
walked up to the girl and put one hand on her
shoulder. "You are sick. I know you are, and
you must come back to the house."

Melissa gave way then, and breaking from the
girl's clasp she leaned against the stone wall and
sobbed, while Margaret put her arms about her
and waited silently.

"Come now," she said, "let me help you over.
There now. You must come back and get some
thing to eat and lie down." And Margaret led
Melissa back across the fields.

381

XXX

PEACE

FT was strange to Chad that he should be
drifting toward a new life down the river
which once before had carried him to a new world.
The future then was no darker than now, but he
could hardly connect himself with the little fellow
in coon-skin cap and moccasins who had floated
down on a raft so many years ago, when at every
turn of the river his eager eyes looked for a new
and thrilling mystery.

They talked of the long fight, the two lads,
for, in spite of the war-worn look of them, both
were still nothing but boys — and they talked with
no bitterness of camp life, night attacks, sur
prises, escapes, imprisonment, incidents of march
and battle. Both spoke little of their boyhood
Jays or of the future. The pall of defeat over
hung Dan. To him the world seemed to be near
ing an end, while to Chad the outlook was what
he had known all his life — nothing to begin with
and everything to be done. Once only Dan
voiced his own trouble:

"What are you going to do, Chad — now that
382

PEACE

this infernal war is over ? Going into the regular
army ?"

"No," said Chad, decisively. About his own
future Dan volunteered nothing — he only turned
his head quickly to the passing woods, as though
in fear that Chad might ask some similar ques
tion, but Chad was silent. And thus they glided
between high cliffs and down into the lowlands
until at last, through a little gorge between two
swelling river hills, Dan's eye caught sight of an
orchard, a leafy woodland, and a pasture of blue-
grass. With a cry he raised himself on one elbow.

"Home! I tell you, Chad, we're getting
home!" He closed his eyes and drew the sweet
air in as though he were drinking it down like
wine. His eyes were sparkling when he opened
them again and there was a new color in his face.
On they drifted until, toward noon, the black col
umn of smoke that meant the capital loomed
against the horizon. There Mrs. Dean was wait
ing for them, and Chad turned his face aside when
the mother took her son in her arms. With a sad:
smile she held out her hand to Chad.

''You must come home with us," Mrs. Dean
said, with quiet decision.

"Where is Margaret, mother?" Chad almost
trembled when he heard the name.

''Margaret couldn't come. She is not very well'
and she is taking care of Harry."

383

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

The very station had tragic memories to Chad.
There was the long hill which he had twice
climbed — once on a lame foot and once on flying
Dixie — past the armory and the graveyard. He
had seen enough dead since he peered through
those iron gates to fill a dozen graveyards the like
in size. Going up in the train, he could see the barn
where he had slept in the hayloft the first time
he came to the Bluegrass, and the creek-bridge
where Major Buford had taken him into his car
nage. Major Buford was dead. He had almost
died in prison, Mrs. Dean said, and Chad choked
and could say nothing. Once, Dan began a series
of eager questions about the house and farm, and
the servants and the neighbors, but his mother's
answers were hesitant and he stopped short. She,
too, asked but few questions, and the three were
quiet while the train rolled on with little more
speed than Chad and Dixie had made on that long
ago night-ride to save Dan and Rebel Jerry.
About that ride Chad had kept Harry's lips and
his own closed, for he wished no such appeal as
that to go to Margaret Dean. Margaret was not
at the station in Lexington. She was not well,
Rufus said; so Chad would not go with them that
night, but would come out next day.

"I owe my son's life to you, Captain Buford,"
said Mrs. Dean, with trembling lip, "and you
must make our house your home while you are

384

PEACE

here. I bring that message to you from Harry
and Margaret. I know and they know now all
you have done for us and all you have tried to do. "

Chad could hardly speak his thanks. He would
be in the Bluegrass only a few days, he stammered,
but he would go out to see them next day. That
night he went to the old inn where the Major
had taken him to dinner. Next day he hired ahorse
from the livery stable where he had bought the old
brood mare, and early in the afternoon he rode out
the broad turnpike in a nervous tumult of feeling
that more than once made him halt in the road.
He wore his uniform, which was new, and made
him uncomfortable — it looked too much like wav
ing a victorious flag in the face of a beaten enemy
— but it was the only stitch of clothes he had, and
that he might not explain.

It was the first of May. Just eight years be
fore, Chad with a burning heart had watched
Richard Hunt gayly dancing with Margaret,
while the dead chieftain, Morgan, gayly fid
dled for the merry crowd. Now the sun shone
as it did then, the birds sang, the wind shook
the happy leaves and trembled through the bud
ding heads of bluegrass to show that nature had
known no war and that her mood was never other
than of hope and peace. But there were no fat
cattle browsing in the Dean pastures now, no
flocks of Southdown sheep with frisking lambs.

385

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

The worm fences had lost their riders and were
broken down here and there. The gate sagged
on its hinges; the fences around yard and garden
and orchard had known no whitewash for years;
the paint on the noble old house was cracked and
peeling, the roof of the barn was sunken in, and
the cabins of the quarters were closed, for the hand
of war, though unclinched, still lay heavy on the
home of the Deans. Snowball came to take his
horse. He was respectful, but his white teeth did
not flash the welcome Chad once had known. An
other horse stood at the hitching-post and on it
was a cavalry saddle and a rebel army blanket,
and Chad did not have to guess whose it might
be. From the porch, Dan shouted and came down
to meet him, and Harry hurried to the door, fol
lowed by Mrs. Dean. Margaret was not to be
seen, and Chad was glad — he would have a little
more time for self-control. She did not appear
even when they were seated in the porch until Dan
shouted for her toward the garden; and then look
ing toward the gate Chad saw her coming up the
garden walk bareheaded, dressed in white, with
flowers in her hand; and walking by her side,
looking into her face and talking earnestly, was
Richard Hunt. The sight of him nerved Chad
at once to steel. Margaret did not lift her face
until she was half-way to the porch, and then she
stopped suddenly.

386

PEACE

"Why, there's Major Buford," Chad heard
her say, and she came on ahead, walking rapidly.
Chad felt the blood in his face again, and as he
watched Margaret nearing him — pale, sweet,
frank, gracious, unconscious — it seemed that he
was living over again another scene in his life
when he had come from the mountains to live
with old Major Buford; and, with a sudden prayer
that his past might now be wiped as clean as it
was then, he turned from Margaret's hand-clasp
to look into the brave, searching eyes of Richard
Hunt and feel his sinewy fingers in a grip that in
all frankness told Chad plainly that between them,
at least, one war was not quite over yet.

"I am glad to meet you, Major Buford, in
these piping times of peace."

"And I am glad to meet you, General Hunt —
only in times of peace," Chad said, smiling.

The two measured each other swiftly, calmly..
Chad had a mighty admiration for Richard Hunt,
Here was a man who knew no fight but to the fin
ish, who would die as gamely in a drawing-room
as on a battle-field. To think of him — a brigadier-
general at twenty-seven, as undaunted, as unbeaten
as when he heard the first bullet of the war whistle,
and, at that moment, as good an American as
Chadwick Bufwd or any Unionist who had given
his life for his cause! Such a foe thrilled Chad,
and somehow he felt that Margaret was measur-

387

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

ing them as they were measuring each other.
Against such a man what chance had he ?

He would have been comforted could he have
known Richard Hunt's thoughts, for that gentle
man had gone back to the picture of a ragged
mountain boy in old Major Buford's carriage, one
court day long ago, and now he was looking that
same lad over from the visor of his cap down his
superb length to the heels of his riding-boots. His
eyes rested long on Chad's face. The change was
incredible, but blood had told. The face was high
bred, clean, frank, nobly handsome; it had strength
and dignity, and the scar on his cheek told a story
that was as well known to foe as to friend.

"I have .been wanting to thank you, not only
for trying to keep us out of that infernal prison
after the Ohio raid, but for trying to get us out.
Harry here told me. That was generous."

"That was nothing," said Chad. " You forget,
you could have killed me once and — and you
didn't." Margaret was listening eagerly.

"You didn't give me time," laughed General
Hunt.

"Oh, yes, I did. I saw you lift your pistol and
drop it again. I have never ceased to wonder why
you did that."

Richard Hunt laughed. "Perhaps I'm sorry
sometimes that I did," he said, with a certain
dryness.

388

Margaret was listening eagerly.

PEACE

"Oh, no, you aren't, General," said Mar
garet.

Thus they chatted and laughed and joked to
gether above the sombre tide of feeling that
showed in the face of each if it reached not his
tongue, for, when the war was over, the hatchet
in Kentucky was buried at once and buried deep.
Son came back to father, brother to brother, neigh
bor to neighbor; political disabilities were removed
and the sundered threads, unravelled by the war,
were knitted together fast. That is why the post-
bellum terrors of reconstruction were practically
unknown in the State. The negroes scattered, to
be sure, not from disloyalty so much as from a
feverish desire to learn whether they really could
come and go as they pleased. When they learned
that they were really free, most of them drifted
back to the quarters where they were born, and
meanwhile the white man's hand that had wielded
the sword went just as bravely to the plough, and
the work of rebuilding war-shattered ruins began
at once. Old Mammy appeared, by and by, shook
hands with General Hunt and made Chad a curt
sey of rather distant dignity. She had gone into
exile with her "chile" and her "ole Mistis" and
had come home with them to stay, untempted by
the doubtful sweets of freedom. "Old Tom, her
husband, had remained with Major Buford, was
with him on his deathbed," said Margaret, "and

389

THE LITTLE" SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

was on the place still, too old, he said, to take
root elsewhere."

Toward the middle of the afternoon Dan rose
and suggested that they take a walk about the place.
Margaret had gone in for a moment to attend to
some household duty, and as Richard Hunt was
going away next day he would stay, he said, with
Mrs. Dean, who was tired and could not join them.
The three walked toward the dismantled barn
where the tournament had taken place and out
into the woods. Looking back, Chad saw Mar
garet and General Hunt going slowly toward the
garden, and he knew that some crisis was at hand
between the two. He had hard work listening to
Dan and Harry as they planned for the future,
and recalled to each other and to him the incidents
of their boyhood. Harry meant to study law, he
said, and practise in Lexington; Dan would stay
at home and run the farm. Neither brother men
tioned that the old place was heavily mortgaged,
but Chad guessed the fact an'd it made him heart
sick to think of the struggle that was before them
and of the privations yet in store for Mrs. Dean
and Margaret.

"Why don't you, Chad?"

"Do what?"

"Stay here and study law," Harry smiled.
"We'll go into partnership."

Chad shook his head. "No," he said, deci-

390

PEACE

sively. "I've already made up my mind. I'm
going West."

"I'm sorry," said Harry, and no more; he had
learned long ago how useless it was to combat any
purpose of Chadwick Buford.

General Hunt and Margaret were still away
when they got back to the house. In fact, the sun
was sinking when they came in from the woods,
still walking slowly, General Hunt talking ear
nestly and Margaret with her hands clasped be
fore her and her eyes on the path. The faces of
both looked pale, even that far away, but when
they neared the porch, the General was joking and
Margaret was smiling, nor was anything percep
tible to Chad when he said good-by, except a cer
tain tenderness in his tone and manner toward
Margaret, and one fleeting look of distress in her
clear eyes. He was on his horse now, and was
lifting his cap.

"Good-by, Major," he said. "I'm glad you
got through the war alive. Perhaps I'll tell you
some day why I didn't shoot you that morning."
And then he rode away, a gallant, knightly figure,
across the pasture. At the gate he waved his cap
and at a gallop was gone.

After supper, a heaven-born chance led Mrs.
Dean to stroll out into the lovely night. Marga
ret rose to go too, and Chad followed. The same
chance, perhaps, led old Mammy to come out on

391

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

the porch and call Mrs. Dean back. Chad and
Margaret walked on toward the stiles where still
hung Margaret's weather-beaten Stars and Bars.
The girl smiled and touched the flag.

'That was very nice of you to salute me that
morning. I never felt so bitter against Yankees
after that day. I'll take it down now," and she
detached it and rolled it tenderly about the slender
staff.

'That was not my doing," said Chad, "though
if I had been Grant, and there with the whole
Union army, I would have had it salute you. I
was under orders, but I went back for help. May
I carry it for you ?"

"Yes," said Margaret, handing it to him. Chad
had started toward the garden, but Margaret
turned him toward the stile and they walked now
down through the pasture toward the creek that
ran like a wind-shaken ribbon of silver under the
moon.

"Won't you tell me something about Major
Buford ? I've been wanting to ask, but I simply
hadn't the heart. Can't we go over there to
night? I want to see the old place, and I must
leave to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" said Margaret. "Why— I— I
was going to take you over there to-morrow, for
I — but, of course, you must go to-night if it is to
be your only chance."

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PEACE

And so, as they walked along, Margaret told
Chad of the old Major's last days, after he was
released from prison, and came home to die. She
went to see him every day, and she was at his
bedside when he breathed his last. He had
mortgaged his farm to help the Confederate
cause and to pay indemnity for a guerilla raid,
and Jerome Conners held his notes for large
amounts.

'The lawyer told me that he believed some of
the notes were forged, but he couldn't prove it.
He says it is doubtful if more than the house and
a few acres will be left." A light broke in on
Chad's brain.

"He told you?"

Margaret blushed. "He left all he had to me,"
she said, simply.

"I'm so glad," said Chad.

"Except a horse which belongs to you. The
old mare is dead."

"Dear old Major!"

At the stone fence Margaret reached for the
flag.

"We'll leave it here until we come back," she
said, dropping it in a shadow. Somehow the talk
of Major Buford seemed to bring them nearer to
gether — so near that once Chad started to call her
by her first name and stopped when it had half
passed his lips. Margaret smiled.

393

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"The war is over," she said, and Chad spoke
eagerly:

"And you'll call me "

"Yes, Chad."

The very leaves over Chad's head danced sud
denly, and yet the girl was so simple and frank
and kind that the springing hope in his breast was
as quickly chilled.

"Did he ever speak of me except about business
matters ?"

"Never at all at first," said Margaret, blushing
again incomprehensively, "but he forgave you be
fore he died."

"Thank God for that!"

"And you will see what he did for you — the
last thing of his life."

They were crossing the field now.

"I have seen Melissa," said Margaret, sud
denly. Chad was so startled that he stopped in
the path.

"She came all the way from the mountains to
ask if you were dead, and to tell me about — about
your mother. She had just learned it, she said,
and she did not know that you knew. And I
never let her know that I knew, since I supposed
you had some reason for not wanting her to
know."

"I did," said Chad, sadly, but he did not tell
his reason. Melissa would never have learned

394

PEACE

the one thing from him as Margaret would not
learn the other now.

''She came on foot to ask about you and to de
fend you against — against me. And she went
back afoot. She disappeared one morning before
we got up. She seemed very ill, too, and unhappy.
She was coughing all the time, and I wakened one
night and heard her sobbing, but she was so sullen
and fierce that I was almost afraid of her. Next
morning she was gone. I would have taken her
part of the way home myself. Poor thing!"
Chad was walking with his head bent.

"I'm going down to see her before I go West."

"You are going West — to live?"

"Yes."

They had reached the yard gate now which
creaked on rusty hinges when Chad pulled it
open. The yard was running wild with plantains,
the gravelled walk was overgrown, the house was
closed, shuttered, and dark, and the spirit of deso
lation overhung the place, but the ruin looked
gentle in the moonlight. Chad's throat hurt and
his eyes filled.

"I want to show you now the last thing he did,"
said Margaret. Her eyes lighted with tenderness
and she led him wondering down through the
tangled garden to the old family graveyard.

"Climb over and look, Chad," she said, leaning
over the wall.

395

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

There was the grave of the Major's father
which he knew so well; next that, to the left, was
a new mound under which rested the Major him
self. To the right was a stone marked "Chad-
wick Buford, born in Virginia, 1750, died in
Kentucky" — and then another stone marked
simply:

Mary Buford.

"He had both brought from the mountains,"
said Margaret, softly, "and the last time he was
out of the house was when he leaned here to watch
them buried there. He said there would always
be a place next your mother for you. 'Tell the
boy that/ he said." Chad put his arms around
the tombstone and then sank on one knee by his
mother's grave. It was strewn with withered
violets.

"You — you did that, Margaret?"
Margaret nodded through her tears.

The wonder of it! They stood very still, look
ing for a long time into each other's eyes. Could
the veil of the hereafter have been lifted for them
at that moment and they have seen themselves
walking that same garden path, hand in hand,
their faces seamed with age to other eyes, but
changed in not a line to them, the vision would
not have added a jot to their perfect faith. They

PEACE

/vould have nodded to each other and smiled —
"Yes, we know, we know!" The night, the rush
ing earth, the star-swept spaces of the infinite held
no greater wonder than was theirs — they held no
wonder at all. The moon shone, that night, for
them; the wind whispered, leaves danced, flowers
nodded, and crickets chirped from the grass for
them; the farthest star kept eternal lids apart just
for them and beyond, the Maker himself looked
down, that night, just to bless them.

Back they went through the old garden, hand
in hand. No caress had ever passed between
these two. That any man could ever dare even to
dream of touching her sacred lips had been be
yond the boy's imaginings — such was the rever
ence in his love for her — and his very soul shook
when, at the gate, Margaret's eyes dropped from
his to the sabre cut on his cheek and she suddenly
lifted her face.

"I know how you got that, Chad," she said,
and with her lips she gently touched the scar.
Almost timidly the boy drew her to him. Again
her lips were lifted in sweet surrender, and every
wound that he had known in his life was healed.

"I'll show you your horse, Chad."
They did not waken old Tom, but went around
to the stable and Chad led out a handsome colt,

397

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

his satiny coat shining in the moonlight like sil
ver. He lifted his proud head, when he saw Mar
garet, and whinnied.

"He knows his mistress, Margaret — and he's
yours."

"Oh, no, Chad."

"Yes," said Chad, "I've still got Dixie."

"Do you still call her Dixie ?"

"All through the war."

Homeward they went through the dewy fields.

"I wish I could have seen the Major before he
died. If he could only have known how I suf
fered at causing him so much sorrow. And if
you could have known—

"He did know and so did I — later. All that
is over now."

They had reached the stone wall and Chad
picked up the flag again.

"This is the only time I have ever carried this
flag, unless I — unless it had been captured."

"You had captured it, Chad."

"There ?" Chad pointed to the stile and Mar
garet nodded.

' ' There — here — everywhere."

Seated on the porch, Mrs. Dean and Harry and
Dan saw them coming across the field and Mrs.
Dean sighed.

"Father would not say a word against it,
mother," said the elder boy, "if he were here."

398 J

PEACE

"No," said Dan, "not a word."

"Listen, mother," said Harry, and he told the
two about Chad's ride for Dan from Frankfort
to Lexington. "He asked me not to tell. He
did not wish Margaret to know. And listen again,
mother. In a skirmish one day we were fighting
hand to hand. I saw one man with his pistol
levelled at me and another with his sabre lifted
on Chad. He saw them both. My pistol was
empty, and do you know what he did ? He shot
the man who was about to shoot me instead of his
own assailant. That is how he got that scar. I
did tell Margaret that."

"Yes, you must go down in the mountains
first," Margaret was saying, "and see if there is
anything you can do for the people who were so
good to you — and to see Melissa. I am worried
about her.M

"And then I must come back to you ?"

"Yes, you must come back to see me once more,
if you can. And then some day you will come
again and buy back the Major's farm" — she
stopped, blushing. "I think that was his wish,
Chad, that you and I — but I would never let him
say it."

"And if that should take too long?"

"I will come to you, Chad," said Margaret.

Old Mammy came out on the porch as they
were climbing the stile.

399

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

"Ole Miss," she said, indignantly, "my Tom
say that he can't get nary a triflin' nigger to come
out hyeh to wuk, an' ef that cawnfiel' ain't
ploughed mighty soon, it's gwine to bu'n up."

"How many horses are there on the place,
Mammy?" asked Dan.

"Hosses!" sniffed the old woman. '' They ain't
nary a hoss — nothin' but two ole broken-down
mules."

"Well, I'll take one and start a plough myself,"
said Harry.

"And I'll take the other," said Dan.

Mammy groaned.

And still the wonder of that night to Chad and
Margaret!

"It was General Hunt who taught me to under
stand — and forgive. Do you know what he said ?
That every man, on both sides, was right — who
did his duty."

"God bless him," said Chad.

400

XXXI

THE WESTWARD WAY

IV/TOTHER TURNER was sitting in the
porch with old Jack at her feet when
Chad and Dixie came to the gate — her bonnet off,
her eyes turned toward the West. The stillness
of death lay over the place, and over the strong
old face some preternatural sorrow. She did not
rise when she saw Chad, she did not speak when
he spoke. She turned merely and looked at him
with a look of helpless suffering. She knew the
question that was on his lips, for she dumbly mo
tioned toward the door and then put her trembling
hands on the railing of the porch and bent her
face down on them. With sickening fear, Chad
stepped on the threshold — cap in hand — and old
Jack followed, whimpering. As his eyes grew
accustomed to the dark interior, he could see a
sheeted form on a bed in the corner and, on the
pillow, a white face.

"Melissa!" he called, brokenly. A groan from
the porch answered him, and, as Chad dropped
to his knees, the old woman sobbed aloud.

In low tones, as though in fear they might dis-
401

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

turb the dead girl's sleep, the two talked on the
porch. Brokenly, the old woman told Chad how
the girl had sickened and suffered with never a
word of complaint. How, all through the war,
she had fought his battles so fiercely that no one
dared attack him in her hearing. How, sick as
she was, she had gone, that night, to save his life.
How she had nearly died from the result of cold
and exposure and was never the same afterward.
How she worked in the house and in the garden
to keep their bodies and souls together, after the
old hunter was shot down and her boys were gone
to the war. How she had learned the story of
Chad's mother from old Nathan Cherry's daugh
ter and how, when the old woman forbade her
going to the Bluegrass, she had slipped away and
gone afoot to clear his name. And then the old
woman led Chad to where once had grown the
rose-bush he had brought Melissa from the Blue-
grass, and pointed silently to a box that seemed
to have been pressed a few inches into the soft
earth, and when Chad lifted it, he saw under it
the imprint of a human foot — his own, made that
morning when he held out a rose-leaf to her and
she had struck it from his hand and turned him,
as an enemy, from her door.

Chad silently went inside and threw open the
window to let the last sunlight in: and he sat
there, with his face as changeless as the still face

402

THE WESTWARD WAY

on the pillow, sat there until the sun went down
and the darkness came in and closed softly about
her She had died, the old woman said, with his
name on her lips.

Dolph and Rube had come back and they would
take good care of the old mother until the end
of her days. But Jack — what should be done with
Jack ? The old dog could follow him no longer.
He could live hardly more than another year, and
the old mother wanted him — to remind her, she
said, of Chad and of Melissa, who had loved
him. He patted his faithful old friend tenderly
and, when he mounted Dixie, late the next after
noon, Jack started to follow him.

"No, Jack," said Chad, and he rode on, with
his eyes blurred. On the top of the steep moun
tain he dismounted, to let his horse rest a moment,
and sat on a log, looking toward the sun. He
could not go back to Margaret and happiness —
not now. It seemed hardly fair to the dead girl
down in the valley. He would send Margaret
word, and she would understand.

Once again he was starting his life over afresh,
with his old capital, a strong body and a stout
heart. In his breast still burned the spirit that
had led his race to the land, had wrenched it from
savage and from king, had made it the high tem-

403

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

pie of Liberty for the worship of freemen — the
Kingdom Come for the oppressed of the earth —
and, himself the unconscious Shepherd of that
Spirit, he was going to help carry its ideals across
a continent Westward to another sea and on —
who knows — to the gates of the rising sun. An
eagle swept over his head, as he rose, and the soft
patter of feet sounded behind him. It was Jack
trotting after him. He stooped and took the old
dog in his arms.

"Go back home, Jack!" he said.

Without a whimper, old Jack slowly wheeled,
but he stopped and turned again and sat on his
haunches — looking back.

"Go home, Jack!" Again the old dog trotted
down the path and once more he turned.

"Home, Jack!" said Chad.

The eagle was a dim, black speck in the band
of yellow that lay over the rim of the sinking sun,
and after its flight, horse and rider took the west
ward way.

404

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